by CrLf on 3/28/10, 12:56 AM
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.
by axod on 3/27/10, 10:46 PM
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...
by jrockway on 3/27/10, 11:44 PM
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.
by jorgecastillo on 3/27/10, 9:08 PM
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.
by Batsu on 3/28/10, 12:00 AM
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.
by patio11 on 3/28/10, 11:56 AM
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.)
by nova on 3/27/10, 10:18 PM
KB does exist, it's a Kelvin-byte.
by DrJokepu on 3/28/10, 12:28 PM
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.
by barnaby on 3/27/10, 9:16 PM
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.
by klodolph on 3/27/10, 10:13 PM
Yes, yes, YES! I loathe the 1024-byte kilobyte.
by mpk on 3/28/10, 1:07 AM
How will this affect upstream compatibility with Debian?