Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525)

[Christopher Chan]

Evan wrote:
> I have been hesitant to add my voice to this discussion thus far, but 
> I think there has been some confusion as to what we are debating. 
> There are really two entirely separate issues at stake, and it would 
> be nice to clarify them.
>
> The first issue is how various things such as disk space should be 
> counted, either in base 2, or in base 10.
I would actually favour base10 for disk space, file size. After all, I'd 
rather not have to divide by whatever power of 1024 to get the number of 
bytes.

Memory in base2 because that is the only way we can get neat numbers.

>
> The second issue is how we can distinguish between base 2 and base 10 
> in the user interface.
>
> For what it's worth, I think we should count everything in base 10 and 
> use the proper SI unit prefixes (KB, MB, etc). Most normal users have 
> no idea what base 2 even is, and this is at least consistent with 
> packaging for HDDs etc. Perhaps have an option to switch to base-2 
> mode (with KiB and MiB prefixes) for those who know what it means. 
> Just my two cents.
This is where the main problem is. Other operating systems are still 
using base2 but SI prefixes. Solve that and the first issue won't be an 
issue.