<blockquote style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote">Message: 8 Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 10:58:16 -0600 From: Neal McBurnett <<a href="mailto:neal@bcn.boulder.co.us">neal@bcn.boulder.co.us</a>> Subject: Re: Ubuntu Desktop Unit Consistency (LP: #369525) To: <a href="mailto:ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Message-ID: <20090602165816.GV7472@feynman<div id=":3d" class="ii gt">> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii This discussion is devolving into apples vs oranges, so here is a shot at helping us focus again. Note the subject line talks about the "Desktop", not the command-line stuff where POSIX got its start. The original post on this topic was talking about Gnome and glib: <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glib2.0/+bug/369525" target="_blank">https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glib2.0/+bug/369525</a> I doubt that POSIX has anything to say about glib, but perhaps I'm missing something. There I think using standard SI units properly is probably the best approach for desktop users in Gnome. I think we've already seen that many interesting command line apps (which POSIX does address) have a --si option which I'm guessing allows folks to stay POSIX-compliant or get something that meets the SI standard, so that's cool. We've also discussed the fix (already fixed in intrepid) for ifconfig. <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/net-tools/+bug/240073" target="_blank">https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/net-tools/+bug/240073</a> and I don't know but I somehow doubt that there is a POSIX issue there, though I guess that some folks might parse the output and get confused. But it seems like the right direction to go. I think it will help in this discussion to be very specific about which tool or application we're talking about. I think POSIX is important, as is clarity and consistency about use of unit prefixes, as is consistency with upstream and other distros. And as we've seen, those can conflict. So I expect it to be an ongoing conversation as we look at each package. If we can use standard SI and/or IEC units without violating POSIX, I think we should. There was also a discussion all this last September on the devel list: Ubuntu Policy: prefixes for multiples of units <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-September/026567.html" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-September/026567.html</a> and I recall a discussion at UDS-Jaunty <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJaunty" target="_blank">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSJaunty</a> about it but the link on that page to the schedule is gone <a href="http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-jaunty/" target="_blank">http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-jaunty/</a> and I don't see any mention of it in the reports. Scott - can you shed some more light on that? In general the best way to have an effect is to comment in the bug reports, or in the blueprint, both of which help to preserve important context. See also the Gnome bug discussions: storage units standard <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309850" target="_blank">http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309850</a> g_format_size_for_display() should use correct IEC units <a href="http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=554172" target="_blank">http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=554172</a> Neal McBurnett <a href="http://neal.mcburnett.org/" target="_blank">http://neal.mcburnett.org/</a> </div></blockquote><div id=":3d" class="ii gt"> </div><div id=":3d" class="ii gt">Reading through the link Neal posted <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-September/026567.html">https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2008-September/026567.html</a> It concerns me that there is a difference between size of RAM reported, and size of disk-space. I've been using the Kibi, Mebi, Gibi etc naming conventions for several years, and have been aggravated by the difference in sizes reported on hard disk packaging, versus what my computer tells me for some time. I say that I always double check the numbers I'm giving my system, to confirm whether the computer is expecting powers of two or powers of ten, and it worries me that I can't simply look at the prefix (kibi, mebi, gibi, etc, versus kilo, mega, giga etc) to know which numbering system to use. I think I understand Ubuntu's concerns with confusing their user, but as other's have mentioned, its not possible for people to become familiar with the prefixes if no one uses them. I personally am more worried about incorrectly using the kilo, mega, giga prefix when we know that there are standards that state that their use is not correct when refering to powers of two, than I am worried about confusing a few users. As a thought on the ability of people to intuitively understand powers of two math. I'm not sure that I understand your concern. I've corrected my mother a few times on her use of mega in place of mebi, and such, and have recently noticed that she is not using mebi when refering to bytes, and mega when refering to metric units of measure. I think that many people will see the reason for the different naming conventions if they have the differences between powers of ten and powers of two related to computing sizes explained to them. If the confusion is a major issue, could we do some of this explaiation as part of a slide-show presentation during system installation? Sort of a "did you know?" type of thing. I've seen that type of idea posted many times on brainstorm, but unfortounately I can't find the references to them right now. --Michael Jones Junior Software Engineering Student Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology CTO of JAM Customs LLC </div>