Bug#770789: marked as done ([tech-ctte] df sizes output format)
Your message dated Mon, 15 Dec 2014 13:17:26 -0800 with message-id 20141215211725.gt31...@rzlab.ucr.edu and subject line Re: Bug#770789: Draft of option for #770789 has caused the Debian Bug report #770789, regarding [tech-ctte] df sizes output format to be marked as done. This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with. If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith. (NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact ow...@bugs.debian.org immediately.) -- 770789: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=770789 Debian Bug Tracking System Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems ---BeginMessage--- Package: tech-ctte Severity: normal X-Debbugs-Cc: 761...@bugs.debian.org As reported in #761424, the sizes output by df(1) are not actual sizes, due to the units used. The units used are merely unit prefixes. Moreover, df uses the same pseudo-units with different meanings. The output can therefore be misleading if one attempts to interpret it. 2 different calls seem to give different measurements for the same filesystems: chealer@debian:~$ LANG=C df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 1.8T 317G 1.4T 19% / udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev tmpfs 252M 5.4M 247M 3% /run /dev/disk/by-uuid/a00f8767-e954-4b81-8035-c6bb414671cb 1.8T 317G 1.4T 19% / tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 961M 0 961M 0% /run/shm /dev/sdb2 2.2G 122M 2.0G 6% /tmp chealer@debian:~$ LANG=C df -H Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 2.0T 340G 1.6T 19% / udev 11M 0 11M 0% /dev tmpfs 264M 5.7M 259M 3% /run /dev/disk/by-uuid/a00f8767-e954-4b81-8035-c6bb414671cb 2.0T 340G 1.6T 19% / tmpfs 5.3M 4.1k 5.3M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 1.1G 0 1.1G 0% /run/shm /dev/sdb2 2.4G 128M 2.2G 6% /tmp chealer@debian:~$ In the first example call, JEDEC prefixes are used, while SI prefixes are used in the second. Michael Stone denies, excusing the behavior with space scarcity, documentation, and what he considers as little impact: I'm not going to deviate from upstream. [...] The space is more important (in my opinion) than the need for a constant reminder of the unit. The documentation is there for people to read the first time, after that it's just not that important. (Even for the numbers above the difference isn't really significant--the relative sizes are the consistent, and what are the odds that you need exactly 12 gigasomethings? If you did need exactly that much space, you're probably better off looking at kbytes or bytes anyway.) The space scarcity and impact arguments do not hold, and unfortunately, even the documentation does not define the pseudo-sizes currently output. -- Filipus Klutiero http://www.philippecloutier.com ---End Message--- ---BeginMessage--- user tech-c...@packages.debian.org usertag 770789 published On Sat, 13 Dec 2014, Don Armstrong wrote: I will announce the decision on -announce shortly. Announced; closing this bug. -- Don Armstrong http://www.donarmstrong.com You could say to the Universe this is not /fair/. And the Universe would say: Oh it isn't? Sorry. -- Terry Pratchett _Soul Music_ p357---End Message---
Re: [CTTE #770789] IEC units in df output
On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 10:38:33AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: RESOLUTION In 770789, the Technical Committee was asked to override the decision of upstream and the maintainer of df to not include i in the units output when asked for IEC output (2^10). The CTTE declines to override the decision of the maintainer and upstream. END OF RESOLUTION Thank you guys! The -ebi- plague is horrible and needs to be fought! You could have responded using some of Ted Ts'o arguments and quotations from #757831. Or, as in a discussion I once had with an old geezer (now retired) who couldn't believe someone could come up with an unit as intuitive as MiB: MiB means million bytes as opposed to MB at 1048576, right? -- // If you believe in so-called intellectual property, please immediately // cease using counterfeit alphabets. Instead, contact the nearest temple // of Amon, whose priests will provide you with scribal services for all // your writing needs, for Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory prices. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-ctte-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20141215205734.gc25...@angband.pl
Re: [CTTE #770789] IEC units in df output
On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 09:57:34PM +0100, Adam Borowski wrote: On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 10:38:33AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: RESOLUTION In 770789, the Technical Committee was asked to override the decision of upstream and the maintainer of df to not include i in the units output when asked for IEC output (2^10). The CTTE declines to override the decision of the maintainer and upstream. END OF RESOLUTION Thank you guys! The -ebi- plague is horrible and needs to be fought! You could have responded using some of Ted Ts'o arguments and quotations from #757831. This is not a statement by the TC about the appropriateness of these prefix conventions, one way or the other. It is only a statement that the TC is not overriding the maintainer (and upstream) regarding this decision. I don't think it's appropriate for the maintainer of the Debian package to diverge from upstream on something like this; and furthermore I don't think it's reasonable for the TC to overrule the maintainer's decision to follow upstream. That doesn't mean I think the current behavior is /correct/, only that I don't think a TC override is an appropriate method of getting this behavior changed. If this is going to be changed, it should be done by getting consensus upstream about how to change the behavior - not by making such a core tool as df behave inconsistently between Debian and other distributions. While my gut reaction to the IEC convention when I first became aware of it was one of distaste, traditional behavior *is* ambiguous, and this ambiguity (including behavior that differs between applications) is confusing. Ubuntu ratified a units policy several years ago that I believe strikes the right balance: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnitsPolicy For a tool such as df, there would be some benefit to being consistent with this policy, by showing Ki/Mi/Gi instead of K/M/G in the output where suitable. But there is also a cost to the extra space used up in the line by changing from a one-character suffix to a two-character suffix in each of the columns. I think it's appropriate for the Debian maintainer and the coreutils upstream to do their own analysis of the cost/benefit tradeoff here, without the TC presuming to meddle. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developerhttp://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: Digital signature
