[TAG] BLOCKSIZE unset by default

[Ben Okopnik]

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 10:50:16AM -0700, Mahesh Aravind wrote:
> Ben,
> 
> --- On Wed, 6/25/08, Ben Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:
> 
> > It's a different charmap for that locale, thus the
> > different result.
> > Different $LC_COLLATE, etc. One is configured to separate
> > numbers that
> > way, the other one isn't. Frankly, I'm a bit
> > puzzled at your puzzlement.
> > :)
> > 
> 
> Oh.. I didn't know that ".UTF-8" had such a profound change. But then,
> why isn't Thomas Adam not getting the commas?

Perhaps because his locale isn't set to one that uses commas to separate
numbers that way?
 
> But the purpose of this thread was to know WHY is BLOCKSIZE not set by
> distros.  Different partioning software format the filesystem using
> different block sizes.

I'd guess it's because it's an optional feature - not everybody wants
to see their data that way, but it's available if you do.
 
> df(1), du(1) etc. automatically assumes that the disk is using 1K
> blocksize.  Why isn't somebody doing something about it?

Again, why should they? If I'm used to seeing the output of 'df' in 1k
blocks, and somebody arbitrarily and suddenly changed it, I'd be pretty
annoyed. Doing it the other way - i.e., sticking with what already
exists and providing options to do it differently - is a) infinitely
expandable and b) not likely to annoy anyone/generate help requests. It
makes a lot of sense to me.

 
-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *