Bug 494964

Summary:	Minor problems with the Handbook (chapter 4)
Product:	[OLD] Docs on www.gentoo.org	Reporter:	Francesco Turco <fturco>
Component:	Installation Handbook	Assignee:	Sven Vermeulen (RETIRED) <swift>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	minor	CC:	docs-team
Priority:	Normal
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
URL:	http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml?part=1&chap=4
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description Francesco Turco 2013-12-21 16:12:26 UTC

I re-read the partitioning section of the handbook after Sven updated it, and found some minor problems:
- "Also the size of a partition is bounded by a much greater limit (more than a few ZB - yes, zetabytes)." It's zettabytes, with two "t". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettabyte for confirmation. You could also optionally specify that the limit is about 8 ZiB (or 9.4 ZB).
- "WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk
doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted." <-- I think this is explicit. Why using fdisk if it tells the user to use parted instead? If there's a reason, I think it should be specified.
- In the parted example the handbooks correctly says to set "unit mib" as the first thing to do and also introduces the MiB unit, but then it uses in the text the MB unit instead of MiB. I think it's important to distinguish MB (megabyte) from MiB (mebibyte) everywhere, as MB is just 95.4% of MiB (and the difference is even greater with GB/GiB)

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Sven Vermeulen (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2013-12-22 19:02:51 UTC

thanks; I've corrected the typo, marked the max size as "almost 8 ZB" and tell the users that we use in the handbook the more common notation (even though it is incorrect).

If you think we should switch to MiB notation instead of MB, I'd like to have the discussion on gentoo-doc for this. The notation is, although standard, far less used and might be seen as either confusing or even patronizing.