Package: iputils-ping Version: 3:20071127-1 Severity: minor
After a successful sequence of ICMP echo responses, ping outputs values labelled; min, mean, max, mdev for the round trip times, "min", "mean" and "max" being self explanatory but documented. I believe it would be desirable to clarify what "mdev" is because; Wikipedia ping article suggests it is mean deviation, and that mdev is a common or accepted abbreviation for mean deviation. The release notes hint it may be "mean deviation" as they mention mean deviation when referring to IPv6 (I believe this to be an error in the release notes). The code calculates: sqrt( mean of squares - square of mean). Which is a quick method of calculating standard deviation from a running sequence of values. I'm not aware of the abbreviation "mdev" being used for standard deviation outside of this implementation of ping. A quick search shows the Provo LUG list has some discussion of this in 2005. -- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers unstable APT policy: (1001, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.15.7 (SMP w/1 CPU core; PREEMPT) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages iputils-ping depends on: ii libc6 2.7-5 GNU C Library: Shared libraries iputils-ping recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
