3GiB ram, gnome-system-monitor now says 2.9GiB

[Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu)]

On Tue, April 7, 2009 15:53, Liam Proven wrote:
> 2009/4/6 Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu>:
>
>> Liam Proven wrote:
>>
>>> 2009/4/6 J. Limon <jlimon at eml.cc>:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Just for comparison, htop reports 3016MB.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> - J. Limon
>>>>
>>>
>>> 3016MB *is* 2.9GB.
>>>
>>
>> NO!
>>
>
> *Yes.*
>
>
> The only people who use decimal measurements in computing are the
> sales lizards who right adverts for hard disks, and only the gullible are
> taken in.

*Yes*
I also hate those sales lizards. Don't we all?

> In computing, KB/MB/GB/TB means the binary powers. This messing around
> with KiB/MiB etc. is never used in any official literature, is not widely
> known, and only confuses beginners. It's pedantry and sophistry and it
> helps nobody.

Perhaps in your part of the world. I live on the continent where the
Système International (SI) was invented. Agreed, the SI is a French
invention and my southern neighbours (I'm from Belgium) are known for
their pedantry and sophistry. But it's not because it's pedentry that it
isn't true.

I was trained as a science teacher (but never ended up in education). I
was always told that words like kilo, mega, giga always mean the same
thing. *ALWAYS*. No discussion. We could fail a test simply for not using
the right units.

That was back in the late nineties, and I already had more than 10 years
of computing experience in my fingers (I'm 32 now). The discrepancy
between decimal and binary units in computing was starting to bother me.
It was like an itch I couldn't scratch. I *knew* that there was something
wrong, but I could't lay my finger on it.

And then, I think it was 2002, I stumbled upon a Usenet discussion about
kibi, mebi, gibi, with a link to this article:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html. Suddenly the skies cleared
up: this was the solution! I was immediately sold. It was simple and
elegant, and it didn't conflict with the traditional measurement systems
that were hammered in my brain. I think an epiphany is the appropriate
word if you are a religious person.

In my personal experience, there are always those boring dec/bin
discussions when kilo, mega, giga are used, but I have never seen a
decimal interpretation of kibi, mebi, gibi. So I use the decimal prefixes
wherever I can, and I don't explain them. I don't need to.


Just a few more comments:

* kilobyte is kB with a small k. Capital K is degrees Kelvin, or (x -
273.15) °C. Really. Trust me on this one, or look it up if you don't.

* people who interpret kilo as 1024 are not beginners. They are
intermediates. *Real* beginners with absolutely zero knowledge of
computing only know that kilogram = 1000 gram and kilometer = 1000 meter
so logically kilobyte = ... ???

-- 
Amedee