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

Liam Proven lproven at gmail.com
Wed Apr 8 13:43:09 UTC 2009


2009/4/8 Derek Broughton <derek at pointerstop.ca>:
> 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
>
> _write_, I hope...
>
>> adverts for hard disks, and only the gullible
>> are taken in.
>>
>> 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.
>
> BS.  GiB is different enough from expectation to warn people, and if people
> would _use_ the binary indicators when they mean them, there'd be a whole
> lot _less_ confusion of the kind you've been sowing here.  And you're very
> wrong about "never used in official literature", because it is very widely
> known and _almost_ usual, now.
> --
> derek

You must live in a strange parallel universe to mine, then, where
outside of geeks on Linux mailing lists and in the occasional bit of
nerdy software, I never see XiB measurements /anywhere/.

And that's from a professional IT consultant and journalist who's been
in the business 21 years, for whatever that's worth. In other words,
someone who lives and breathes this stuff, day in day out.


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508




More information about the ubuntu-users mailing list