What's with KiB and MiB???? (Solved)

[Howard]

While I am coming to like KDE4 and am waiting to be able to install PCLOS2010, I find a few niggles., here's a new one:

Some new units seem to have been invented for file sizes.  Whatever are KiB and MiB?  The standard unit abbreviations (symbols) for kilobytes and megabytes are KB and MB.   (And don't use lower case!)

Maybe the "i" comes from the second letter in kilo, but that doesn't work for mega.  

This happens both on Dolphin and Konqueror.

[T6]

maybe this could explain the diferences?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kib

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KiB

[muungwana]

the "i" stands for binary.

A kilo in decimal is 1000, it is 1024 in binary( 2.4 % difference)
A mega in decimal is 1000^2, it is 1024^2 in binary (7.3 % difference)
A giga in decimal is 1000^3, it is 1024^3 in binary (15.3 % difference)

as you can see, the difference is small in the beginning but it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and somebody can make a lot of money at your expense if they substitute one unit for another.

There is a proposal to use differentiate the decimal unit and and binary one. KDE is, by adding the "i", make it clear what unit it is using to avoid confusion

[menotu]

Whatever are KiB and MiB

I always thought MiB = Men In Black  

[T6]

in fact it was, seriously but men in black is kinda old now so the name theft shouldn't be a problem and only confusing you and me 

[menotu]

T6

Its when its Men In White we wanna start worrying and getting confused  

[T6]

in part 3 but people, this is kde4 support not sandbox, be serious

[Howard]

Thanks T6, I should have known there was a reason - I've always supposed KB meant both according to context, but it's odd that wikipedia should have two pages on this giving two different abbreviations!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kib
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KiB

(Now if I had had a similar rapid multiple response to my printing problem in "Desktop Hardware" that would have been really useful!)

[T6]

glad to help

it is a big confusion and will be for some more years

"Now if I had had a similar rapid multiple response to my printing problem in "Desktop Hardware" that would have been really useful!"

hey where is your post with your printer problem, i will post a joke or two 

[Howard]

hey where is your post with your printer problem, i will post a joke or two 

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,68585.0.html

Maybe that's not the right forum, but as I didn't know where the problem was and it was to do with my printer, it seemed as good as any.

[T6]

in that other post you mention problems with kde3 but i don't have printer or kde3 anymore so can't help you, anyway kde4 is almost the rule now

about the Kib and KiB, don't forget to mark it as (SOLVED) if you got the answer you required

[Howard]

anyway kde4 is almost the rule now

As soon as I can have a version that doesn't crash with sound files and won't need re-installing shortly I'll switch fully.