blog/data/2013-01-16-debian-dep11.txt

   1 Title: What is the most supported MIME type in Debian?
   2 Tags: english, debian
   3 Date: 2013-01-16 10:10
   4
   5 <p>The <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/AppStreamDebianProposal">DEP-11
   6 proposal to add AppStream information to the Debian archive</a>, is a
   7 proposal to make it possible for a Desktop application to propose to
   8 the user some package to install to gain support for a given MIME
   9 type, font, library etc. that is currently missing.  With such
  10 mechanism in place, it would be possible for the desktop to
  11 automatically propose and install leocad if some LDraw file is
  12 downloaded by the browser.</p>
  13
  14 <p>To get some idea about the current content of the archive, I decided
  15 to write a simple program to extract all .desktop files from the
  16 Debian archive and look up the claimed MIME support there.  The result
  17 can be found on the
  18 <a href="http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/AppStreamTest">Skolelinux FTP
  19 site</a>.  Using the collected information, it become possible to
  20 answer the question in the title.  Here are the 20 most supported MIME
  21 types in Debian stable (Squeeze), testing (Wheezy) and unstable (Sid).
  22 The complete list is available from the link above.</p>
  23
  24 <p><strong>Debian Stable:</strong></p>
  25
  26 <pre>
  27   count MIME type
  28   ----- -----------------------
  29      25 audio/mpeg
  30      24 audio/x-mp3
  31      24 application/ogg
  32      23 text/plain
  33      21 image/tiff
  34      20 image/jpeg
  35      20 audio/x-flac
  36      19 image/png
  37      19 image/gif
  38      19 audio/x-wav
  39      19 audio/x-mpegurl
  40      18 image/bmp
  41      18 audio/x-scpls
  42      18 audio/x-mpeg
  43      16 audio/x-musepack
  44      16 application/x-ogg
  45      14 image/x-portable-pixmap
  46      14 image/x-portable-bitmap
  47      13 video/x-ms-asf
  48      13 video/mpeg
  49 </pre>
  50
  51 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
  52
  53 <pre>
  54   count MIME type
  55   ----- -----------------------
  56      21 text/plain
  57      21 audio/x-mp3
  58      21 audio/mpeg
  59      20 application/ogg
  60      19 audio/x-wav
  61      18 image/tiff
  62      18 image/jpeg
  63      18 audio/x-flac
  64      17 image/png
  65      17 image/gif
  66      17 audio/x-mpegurl
  67      16 audio/x-scpls
  68      15 image/bmp
  69      15 audio/x-mpeg
  70      14 application/x-ogg
  71      13 video/x-ms-asf
  72      13 audio/x-musepack
  73      12 video/x-ms-wmv
  74      12 video/x-msvideo
  75      12 video/quicktime
  76 </pre>
  77
  78 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
  79
  80 <pre>
  81   count MIME type
  82   ----- -----------------------
  83      23 audio/mpeg
  84      22 text/plain
  85      21 audio/x-mp3
  86      21 application/ogg
  87      20 audio/x-wav
  88      19 image/tiff
  89      19 audio/x-flac
  90      18 image/jpeg
  91      17 image/png
  92      17 image/gif
  93      17 audio/x-mpegurl
  94      16 image/bmp
  95      16 audio/x-scpls
  96      16 audio/x-mpeg
  97      14 audio/x-musepack
  98      14 application/x-ogg
  99      13 video/x-ms-asf
 100      13 video/mpeg
 101      13 audio/mp4
 102      12 video/x-ms-wmv
 103 </pre>
 104
 105 <p>I am told that PackageKit can provide an API to access the kind of
 106 information mentioned in DEP-11.  I have not yet had time to look at
 107 it, but hope the PackageKit people in Debian are on top of these
 108 issues.</p>