

Ubuntu Will Switch To Base-10 File Size Units In Future Release - 0xdeadc0de
http://www.neowin.net/news/ubuntu-implements-units-policy-will-switch-to-base-10-units-in-future-release

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CrLf
Snow Leopard uses base-10 units in some places, base-2 units in other places.

It isn't really confusing because when I go check how much free space I have
on my hard-drive I'm just looking for a rough value, it can be base-10, base-2
or just "lots", "enough" or "almost out". The same happens to files and
directories, I just want to know if they are "huge", "big" or "reasonable".

The problem is that the "old way" of reporting units in base-2 served the same
purpose in exactly the same way. But this gratuitous change brings an
heterogenous environment that causes problems when I want do do scripts or
somesuch technical stuff where the exact amounts _do_ matter, and now have to
worry in which base they are (and often this isn't obvious).

Consistency was dropped for nothing.

As for Ubuntu, I think this is a "me too" move that serves no purpose. But
hey, I don't use Ubuntu, so I couldn't care less.

~~~
m0tive
Surely this won't actually effect you when you want to do a script. If you
want the size of a file, 'ls' (and most commands I think) gives you it in
bytes, not KiB or KB or whatever...

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axod
This is like the half metrication of the UK. You end up with 2 systems, and
twice as much confusion.

Base 2 is far more logical and useful IMHO :/

Wouldn't it be so much simpler if humans had evolved to have 16 fingers
instead of 10...

~~~
AngryParsley
We should use imperial units since they're more natural/intuitive/(insert
rationalization here):

1 InchByte = 2.54 bytes = approximately pi bits (Edit: oops, it's about 20
bits. I divided where I should have multiplied.)

1 FootByte = 30.5 bytes

1 YardByte = 91.4 bytes

1 RodByte = 503 bytes

1 MileByte = 160,934 bytes

1 AUByte = 14.7 terabytes

1 LightYearByte = 841 petabytes

So 1 megabyte is almost exactly 2^15 footbytes. (1MB = 6.2 milebytes = 10,941
yardbytes = 32,786 footbytes)

Fun fact I learned while doing these calculations: There are 63,239 AUs in one
light-year and 63,360 inches in one mile. So if you want to get a better idea
of interstellar distances, imagine everything scaled down. E.G. if Earth was 1
inch from the Sun then Alpha Centauri would be 4 miles away.

~~~
geocar
That doesn't make any sense. You need to be using imperial _volumes_.

1 tablespoonbyte is approximately 36 bits (I just counted, with couscous, the
universal measure), which makes a pintbyte is 1152 bytes- about a kilobyte,
but also the number of pixels across on my screen.

It also gives us a gallonbyte - just shy of 10 kilobytes at 9216 bytes. That's
even _more_ convenient, because it's square root is 96.

Of course, having a hogsheadbyte at 442368- well, I think even _you_ will find
it difficult to argue the usefulness of finally being able to use a multiple
of 442368.

Finally, we've got the tunbyte: 2322432. _Nobody_ will ever need more than
about 28% of a tunbyte of memory, so you see it scales out at just the most
convenient point for us here.

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jrockway
This is interesting, as we are finally moving away from storage that uses
base-10 measurement (rotating disks). SSDs and flash drives are mostly base-2
devices.

~~~
pieter
Where did you get that from? Both Intel and OCZ, probably the most popular
makers of SSD's, use base-10 in their product advertising. HDD or SSD doesn't
matter from a consumer perspective.

[http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/32229...](http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/322296.pdf)

[http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz...](http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_vertex_series_sata_ii_2_5-ssd)

~~~
jrockway
The physical hardware involved, rather. You can write whatever you want on the
box, and you can disable as many sectors in firmware as you want. Doesn't mean
that NAND flash doesn't come in power-of-two units.

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jorgecastillo
I don't really care whether base-10 or base-2 is used to measure data as long
as it's standard for all hardware and software.

~~~
wmf
It's way too late for that. Networks and hard disks have been using base 10
and software has been using base 2 for decades. IMO Ubuntu has magnified the
confusion now that some software uses base 2 and some uses base 10.

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Batsu
You can use whatever base you want. Realistically, end users don't even know
when they're low on space anyway. Even if they do, it's a system of "deleting
unused files" not finding the closest file size you can.

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patio11
I think 90% of users no longer need to know how large their files are, and the
other 10% are not far off. (For that matter, I think 90% of users don't need
to know that "files" exist.)

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nova
KB does exist, it's a Kelvin-byte.

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DrJokepu
I think that will pretty much mean that I'll be a Fedora user in the future. I
understand that many people prefer base 10 file sizes for various reasons, I
don't however so that change would drive me mad really quickly.

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barnaby
I'm amazed at the depth Canonical are going into in order to make the user
experience for Ubuntu as simple and stunning as possible. It's this kind of
attention to detail is making Ubuntu the number one OS out there.

~~~
AngryParsley
Compared to OS X or Windows, I'd say Ubuntu gets a lot of details wrong. The
window button positioning was a recent example, but it's by no means the
first. Below are some bugs that I have experienced while using 9.10 or 10.04
beta. I also noted the year they were filed.

Lots of redundant fonts: <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/18666> (2005)

Copy-pasting text is broken in some apps.
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334> (late 2004)

No way to auto-arrange desktop icons.
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/nautilus/+bug/20284> (2005,
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/1260...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nautilus/+bug/12608)
is related)

No ability to change individual screensaver settings.
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-
screensaver/...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-
screensaver/+bug/22007) (2005)

Can't read some DVDs without using sudo/root.
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-
linux/+bug/10...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/util-
linux/+bug/10550) (late 2004)

Setting volume to 0 doesn't mute speakers.
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/16454> (2005)

Ubuntu is improving (9.10 finally fixed a bunch of problems with Intel
graphics), but the user experience details are definitely a weak spot.
Considering how old these bugs are, I don't expect the situation to improve
any time soon.

~~~
hartror
Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with you there. The user experience in
Ubuntu is strong and consistent. Their philosophy makes sense even for power
users. Users can find the all the options they normally need and power users
can dig into things to customise further.

I've never hit any of these bugs (and have been using Ubuntu full time since
defecting from Fedora in '05) and most of them have very good reasons for not
being fixed or are a work in progress and none of them are a user experience
nightmare.

~~~
AngryParsley
_I've never hit any of these bugs_

Lucky for you. Unfortunately, I and many others have.

 _most of them have very good reasons for not being fixed_

Some of them have inane reasons for not being fixed. From
<https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316654>

Resolution: WONTFIX "I don't have any plans to support this. My view is that
any screensaver theme that requires configuration is inherently broken."

 _or are a work in progress_

In progress for five years?

 _and none of them are a user experience nightmare._

I wasn't talking about nightmares, just minor things that are broken. You want
nightmares? Try:

2.6.28-11 causes massive data corruption on 64 bit installations
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/346691> (March 2009)
This one is particularly bad because they went ahead and released Jaunty with
this bug. Then, the fixed kernel introduced a new bug that caused FS
corruption on systems with Intel disk controllers.

ehci_hcd module causes I/O errors in USB 2.0 devices
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/88746> (2007)

ath5k driver connection and performance issues
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/461419> (2009)

[karmic regression] all network apps / browsers suffer from multi-second
delays by default due to IPv6 DNS lookups
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/eglibc/+bug/417757>

I've been hit by all of these except the first one, and I was only saved from
that because I stumbled on the bug report before upgrading to Jaunty.

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klodolph
Yes, yes, YES! I loathe the 1024-byte kilobyte.

~~~
phob
Why?

~~~
klodolph
Because I sometimes want to do math. Lets say I want to put 6h33m of video on
a 4.7 GB DVD. What bitrate do I choose? Ah, 4.7e9*8 bit / 23580 s = 1.59
Mbit/s. Now what happens if we use powers of two? I have to type a lot more
into my calculator.

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mpk
How will this affect upstream compatibility with Debian?

~~~
Raphael
Shouldn't be a problem, as the internal representation of size is still bytes.

