X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/a58ae4e89ee7e24a8e6f800b8e722560f2dcb3c1..6827c20a65667b2d54f665b5c49539dd75f228c0:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 23cc33189d..7d0b196b1c 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,34 +6,187 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_new__best__multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html + Mon, 6 Jun 2016 12:50:00 +0200 + <p>When I set out a few weeks ago to figure out +<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_the_best_multimedia_player_in_Debian_.html">which +multimedia player in Debian claimed to support most file formats / +MIME types</a>, I was a bit surprised how varied the sets of MIME types +the various players claimed support for. The range was from 55 to 130 +MIME types. I suspect most media formats are supported by all +players, but this is not really reflected in the MimeTypes values in +their desktop files. There are probably also some bogus MIME types +listed, but it is hard to identify which one this is.</p> + +<p>Anyway, in the mean time I got in touch with upstream for some of +the players suggesting to add more MIME types to their desktop files, +and decided to spend some time myself improving the situation for my +favorite media player VLC. The fixes for VLC entered Debian unstable +yesterday. The complete list of MIME types can be seen on the +<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia/PlayerSupport">Multimedia +player MIME type support status</a> Debian wiki page.</p> + +<p>The new "best" multimedia player in Debian? It is VLC, followed by +totem, parole, kplayer, gnome-mpv, mpv, smplayer, mplayer-gui and +kmplayer. I am sure some of the other players desktop files support +several of the formats currently listed as working only with vlc, +toten and parole.</p> + +<p>A sad observation is that only 14 MIME types are listed as +supported by all the tested multimedia players in Debian in their +desktop files: audio/mpeg, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, audio/x-mpegurl, +audio/x-ms-wma, audio/x-scpls, audio/x-wav, video/mp4, video/mpeg, +video/quicktime, video/vnd.rn-realvideo, video/x-matroska, +video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv and video/x-msvideo. Personally I find +it sad that video/ogg and video/webm is not supported by all the media +players in Debian. As far as I can tell, all of them can handle both +formats.</p> + + + + + A program should be able to open its own files on Linux + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_program_should_be_able_to_open_its_own_files_on_Linux.html + Sun, 5 Jun 2016 08:30:00 +0200 + <p>Many years ago, when koffice was fresh and with few users, I +decided to test its presentation tool when making the slides for a +talk I was giving for NUUG on Japhar, a free Java virtual machine. I +wrote the first draft of the slides, saved the result and went to bed +the day before I would give the talk. The next day I took a plane to +the location where the meeting should take place, and on the plane I +started up koffice again to polish the talk a bit, only to discover +that kpresenter refused to load its own data file. I cursed a bit and +started making the slides again from memory, to have something to +present when I arrived. I tested that the saved files could be +loaded, and the day seemed to be rescued. I continued to polish the +slides until I suddenly discovered that the saved file could no longer +be loaded into kpresenter. In the end I had to rewrite the slides +three times, condensing the content until the talk became shorter and +shorter. After the talk I was able to pinpoint the problem &ndash; +kpresenter wrote inline images in a way itself could not understand. +Eventually that bug was fixed and kpresenter ended up being a great +program to make slides. The point I'm trying to make is that we +expect a program to be able to load its own data files, and it is +embarrassing to its developers if it can't.</p> + +<p>Did you ever experience a program failing to load its own data +files from the desktop file browser? It is not a uncommon problem. A +while back I discovered that the screencast recorder +gtk-recordmydesktop would save an Ogg Theora video file the KDE file +browser would refuse to open. No video player claimed to understand +such file. I tracked down the cause being <tt>file --mime-type</tt> +returning the application/ogg MIME type, which no video player I had +installed listed as a MIME type they would understand. I asked for +<a href="http://bugs.gw.com/view.php?id=382">file to change its +behavour</a> and use the MIME type video/ogg instead. I also asked +several video players to add video/ogg to their desktop files, to give +the file browser an idea what to do about Ogg Theora files. After a +while, the desktop file browsers in Debian started to handle the +output from gtk-recordmydesktop properly.</p> + +<p>But history repeats itself. A few days ago I tested the music +system Rosegarden again, and I discovered that the KDE and xfce file +browsers did not know what to do with the Rosegarden project files +(*.rg). I've reported <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/825993">the +rosegarden problem to BTS</a> and a fix is commited to git and will be +included in the next upload. To increase the chance of me remembering +how to fix the problem next time some program fail to load its files +from the file browser, here are some notes on how to fix it.</p> + +<p>The file browsers in Debian in general operates on MIME types. +There are two sources for the MIME type of a given file. The output from +<tt>file --mime-type</tt> mentioned above, and the content of the +shared MIME type registry (under /usr/share/mime/). The file MIME +type is mapped to programs supporting the MIME type, and this +information is collected from +<a href="https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/desktop-entry-spec/">the +desktop files</a> available in /usr/share/applications/. If there is +one desktop file claiming support for the MIME type of the file, it is +activated when asking to open a given file. If there are more, one +can normally select which one to use by right-clicking on the file and +selecting the wanted one using 'Open with' or similar. In general +this work well. But it depend on each program picking a good MIME +type (preferably +<a href="http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml">a +MIME type registered with IANA</a>), file and/or the shared MIME +registry recognizing the file and the desktop file to list the MIME +type in its list of supported MIME types.</p> + +<p>The <tt>/usr/share/mime/packages/rosegarden.xml</tt> entry for +<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/shared-mime-info-spec">the +Shared MIME database</a> look like this:</p> + +<p><blockquote><pre> +&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt; +&lt;mime-info xmlns="http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/shared-mime-info"&gt; + &lt;mime-type type="audio/x-rosegarden"&gt; + &lt;sub-class-of type="application/x-gzip"/&gt; + &lt;comment&gt;Rosegarden project file&lt;/comment&gt; + &lt;glob pattern="*.rg"/&gt; + &lt;/mime-type&gt; +&lt;/mime-info&gt; +</pre></blockquote></p> + +<p>This states that audio/x-rosegarden is a kind of application/x-gzip +(it is a gzipped XML file). Note, it is much better to use an +official MIME type registered with IANA than it is to make up ones own +unofficial ones like the x-rosegarden type used by rosegarden.</p> + +<p>The desktop file of the rosegarden program failed to list +audio/x-rosegarden in its list of supported MIME types, causing the +file browsers to have no idea what to do with *.rg files:</p> + +<p><blockquote><pre> +% grep Mime /usr/share/applications/rosegarden.desktop +MimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition;audio/x-rosegarden-device;audio/x-rosegarden-project;audio/x-rosegarden-template;audio/midi; +X-KDE-NativeMimeType=audio/x-rosegarden-composition +% +</pre></blockquote></p> + +<p>The fix was to add "audio/x-rosegarden;" at the end of the +MimeType= line.</p> + +<p>If you run into a file which fail to open the correct program when +selected from the file browser, please check out the output from +<tt>file --mime-type</tt> for the file, ensure the file ending and +MIME type is registered somewhere under /usr/share/mime/ and check +that some desktop file under /usr/share/applications/ is claiming +support for this MIME type. If not, please report a bug to have it +fixed. :)</p> + + + Tor - from its creators mouth 11 years ago http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tor___from_its_creators_mouth_11_years_ago.html http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Tor___from_its_creators_mouth_11_years_ago.html Sat, 28 May 2016 14:20:00 +0200 <p>A little more than 11 years ago, one of the creators of Tor, and -the current President of the Tor project, Roger Dingledine, gave a -talk for the members of the Norwegian Unix User group (NUUG). A video -of the talk was recorded, and today I finally was able to publish the -video of the talk on Frikanalen, the Norwegian open channel TV station -where NUUG currently publishes its talks. You can +the current President of <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">the Tor +project</a>, Roger Dingledine, gave a talk for the members of the +<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">Norwegian Unix User group</a> (NUUG). A +video of the talk was recorded, and today, thanks to the great help +from David Noble, I finally was able to publish the video of the talk +on Frikanalen, the Norwegian open channel TV station where NUUG +currently publishes its talks. You can <a href="http://frikanalen.no/se">watch the live stream using a web browser</a> with WebM support, or check out the recording on the video on demand page for the talk "<a href="http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599">Tor: Anonymous -communication for the US Department of Defense...and you.</a>".</p> +communication for the US Department of Defence...and you.</a>".</p> <p>Here is the video included for those of you using browsers with HTML video and Ogg Theora support:</p> <p><video width="70%" poster="http://simula.gunkies.org/media/625599/large_thumb/20050421-tor-frikanalen.jpg" controls> <source src="http://simula.gunkies.org/media/625599/theora/20050421-tor-frikanalen.ogv" type="video/ogg"/> - <h1>Browser does not support HTML5 video</h1> - Please use Chrome, Opera, Firefox or any other browser which - supports Ogg Theora. </video></p> -<p>I guess the gist of the talk can be summarized quite simply: If you +<p>I guess the gist of the talk can be summarised quite simply: If you want to help the military in USA (and everyone else), use Tor. :)</p> @@ -336,73 +489,5 @@ first computer being sold with Debian preinstalled?</p> - - NUUG contests Norwegian police DNS seizure of popcorn-time.no - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NUUG_contests_Norwegian_police_DNS_seizure_of_popcorn_time_no.html - Mon, 18 Apr 2016 10:00:00 +0200 - <p>It is days like today I am really happy to be a member of -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the Norwegian Unix User group</a>, a -member association for those of us believing in free software, open -standards and unix-like operating systems. NUUG announced today it -will -<a href="http://www.nuug.no/news/Pressemelding__NUUG_og_EFN_begj_rer_rettslig_pr_ving_for_DNS_domenebeslag_av_popcorn_time_no.shtml">try -to bring the seizure of the DNS domain popcorn-time.no as -unlawful</a>, to stand up for the principle that writing about a -controversial topic is not infringing copyrights, and censuring web -pages by hijacking DNS domain should be decided by the courts, not the -police. The DNS domain was seized by the Norwegian National Authority -for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime -a month ago. I hope this bring more paying members to NUUG to give -the association the financial muscle needed to bring this case as far -as it must go to stop this kind of DNS hijacking.</p> - - - - - Ny utgave (v2.2) av den frie norske stavekontrollen gitt ut - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ny_utgave__v2_2__av_den_frie_norske_stavekontrollen_gitt_ut.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ny_utgave__v2_2__av_den_frie_norske_stavekontrollen_gitt_ut.html - Fri, 15 Apr 2016 21:20:00 +0200 - <p>I dag tok jeg mot til meg og pakket sammen en ny versjon av den -frie norske stavekontrollen, ca. tre og et halvt år etter forrige -gang. Resultatet kan lastes ned fra -<a href="http://no.speling.org/">no.speling.org-prosjeksiden</a>, både -som kildekodepakke og som "pack"-fil som kanskje fortsatt kan brukes -av OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice. Byggesystemet trenger oppussing, men i -denne omgang hadde jeg bare tid til å fikse byggefeil forårsaket av -endringer i GNU grep. De øvrige endringene var gjort tidligere i -påvente av en ny utgave.</p> - -<p><strong>Her er det som er nytt (fra NEWS-fila i -kildekodepakken):</strong></p> - -<p>Release 2.2 (2016-04-15)</p> - -<ul> - - <li>Rewrite how scripts/speling2words handle tripple consonants, to - avoid importing duplicate words from no.speling.org, and getting - rid of the existing duplicates in norsk.words.</li> - <li>Remove duplicate entries with tripple consonants from norsk.words.</li> - <li>Update frequency for entries in norsk.words based on - <URL:http://helmer.aksis.uib.no/nta/ordlistf.zip> (ran 'make - freq-update').</li> - <li>Correct nn ispell build, avoid crash in munchlist causing lots of - words to fall out of the database.</li> - <li>Use grep -a to convince grep it is working on text files, to work - with newer grep versions.</li> - - <li>Remove some words disputed in the no.speling.org review process: - <ul> - <li>apparent (nb)</li> - <li>likke (nb)</li> - <li>ugjest, ugjesten, ugjestens (nb)</li> - </ul></li> - -</ul> - - -