Wording and meaning, making understandable sentences

Subscribe to this thread if you want to help with the correct wording and meaning of the sentences used in important places

Sometimes there's an issue with some important sentences which needs to be communicated better, so this thread is made in order to post them and debate suggests (basically, just answer them if you have a good suggestion to them)

mentions: @triantares @TheTechRobo @Rebel450

I recently found in a youtube comments of 3.8.14 people saying that the 32bit requires at least 3GB of ram, i was like totally WTF with that... but understood that something is wrong on the website sentences / meaning, so I searched for these words in order to improve them to make them correctly understandable, to my surprise, I personally think that is correctly written, so for now im going to remove this detail because can be confusing

(and in fact, the OS itself warns the user in more detail about this 3GB limitation if is detected that more than 3GB is detected, so is not a bigger issue to not detail that)

The original sentence was:

  • Limited to 3 GB of RAM (non-pae kernel)

Would you have changed it to something else? limited means limited (not required), hum!

Hum... why is this confusing????

maybe this is what it sounds like:

Limited to at least 3GB of RAM (non-pae kernel)

It still doesn't make sense tho...

:baffled:

Are you telling me you uploaded a new video and I missed it? :D.

two people here saying that the 32bit version requires at least 3GB to run enlightenment... this is of course a confused info from the "3GB limitation" I assume :baffled:

Does conky in the video show increased ram usage?

(Sorry, I'm too busy to watch, i've got a few chores to do that the others are getting mad at me for putting off)

I think you assume correct ..... alas, there's no way one can defend oneself from idiots like those.

But as you say .... It's all well explained when installing so might as well remove the, in fact superfluous comment on the website.
We'll probably have a hard time getting that myth debunked, the world is full of imbeciles like those. :shocked:

2 Likes

I know a lot of techworker, that never heard (or already forgot) about the 32bit limitation. They don't know words like 'PAE', '3GB limit', ... As it was from the 56kbit Modem area (shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs).

But on the other hand, a limit is a line. You can reach a limit from both sides. Like a fence, you don't know if you are the captured or the protected, a fence is at first a limit of your freedom.

Maybe a better wording is:

Maximum of 3 GB RAM (because of 32bit limit, except using a PAE kernel)

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I don't know about anyone else, but this makes it sound like Windows 95/98's bug where you can't install it with more than 1GB RAM.

However, we can't just wait until they install -- they waited for an hour to get it, THEN they find out that they can't use most of the RAM on their 32GB monstrosity.

32 bits and 32Gb RAM?
No way! Any idiot that runs that wont want to run Elive.

Anyway running a PAE kernel solves that, so there's no real problem there.

Emotions are running high on this thread. Please be kind and patient with us. Some of us English is a third or fourth Language and we may miss the nuance superimposed on the technical jargon. Personaly the statement '

Has a potential double meaning:

  1. Could mean does not work below 3 GB of RAM
  2. Or does not work above 3GB of RAM

A more technically informed person would easily deduce , its the latter rather than the former, which sadly is the minority of the world.
P.S I am still finding out what 'pae kernel' means)

In short:

Available Packages
Name : kernel-PAE
Summary: The Linux kernel compiled for PAE capable machines.

Description:
This package includes a version of the Linux kernel with support for up to
64GB of high memory. It requires a CPU with Physical Address Extensions (PAE).

The non-PAE kernel can only address up to 4GB of memory.
Install the kernel-PAE package if your machine has more than 4GB of memory.

2 Likes

I've wrote a few sentences about 'PAE' in: Maximum RAM allowed 3GB in 32bit. What if I have 4GB? - #3 by LupusE

3 Likes

Hello!
While in eltrans found this string in elive-daemons...

Bad blocks pending to reallocate has been found in one of your hard disks. This means that some data is stored on them and cannot be recovered yet. If that data is from your operating system you can experience a crash in a random application. If they belongs to your personal or important data then you could have lost some. Because of this, we recommend to backup all your important files and after, reinstall Elive entirely. You can also replace your hard disk with a new one, it is also strongly suggested to be an SSD disk.

I don't think this message should pop up the first few bad blocks, its perfectly normal to have a few

maybe should pop up at 10+ bad blocks???

no, this shouldnt be in eltrans comments and brainstorming, itsnot looking for the meaning its looking for a better wording

I think we have two different situations here:

  1. rewrite the whole thing to get the message after 10+ badblocks
  2. rewrite the eltrans message, less dramatic

I think 2 is much more easy as 1.

Suggestion:

One or more bad blocks found on your system. A few bad blocks can be handled by the system, but more bad blocks could lead to system crashes and/or serious data loss. We recommend to replace the hard drive as soon as possible, if this message occur often.

1 Like

Make that:

One or more bad blocks have been found on your system. A few bad blocks can be handled by the system, but more bad blocks could lead to system crashes and/or serious data loss. We recommend to replace the hard drive as soon as possible (it's recommended to be an SSD for speed and reliability), if this message occurs often.

and it sounds great. :w00t:

1 Like

Are these wordings updated (improved) in eltrans? :slight_smile:

BTW i don't consider "a few" being normal, when you have 1 you will have more lol, so stills good to be warned, unfortunately the quality of the mechanical HD's has always been very unreliable, but there's nothing wrong informing the user when an HD is starting to smell bad