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      32 text/plain
  30      30 audio/mpeg
  31      29 image/png
  32      28 image/jpeg
  33      27 application/ogg
  34      26 audio/x-mp3
  35      25 image/tiff
  36      25 image/gif
  37      22 image/bmp
  38      22 audio/x-wav
  39      20 audio/x-flac
  40      19 audio/x-mpegurl
  41      18 video/x-ms-asf
  42      18 audio/x-musepack
  43      18 audio/x-mpeg
  44      18 application/x-ogg
  45      17 video/mpeg
  46      17 audio/x-scpls
  47      17 audio/ogg
  48      16 video/x-ms-wmv
  49 </pre>
  50
  51 <p><strong>Debian Testing:</strong></p>
  52
  53 <pre>
  54   count MIME type
  55   ----- -----------------------
  56      33 text/plain
  57      32 image/png
  58      32 image/jpeg
  59      29 audio/mpeg
  60      27 image/gif
  61      26 image/tiff
  62      26 application/ogg
  63      25 audio/x-mp3
  64      22 image/bmp
  65      21 audio/x-wav
  66      19 audio/x-mpegurl
  67      19 audio/x-mpeg
  68      18 video/mpeg
  69      18 audio/x-scpls
  70      18 audio/x-flac
  71      18 application/x-ogg
  72      17 video/x-ms-asf
  73      17 text/html
  74      17 audio/x-musepack
  75      16 image/x-xbitmap
  76 </pre>
  77
  78 <p><strong>Debian Unstable:</strong></p>
  79
  80 <pre>
  81   count MIME type
  82   ----- -----------------------
  83      31 text/plain
  84      31 image/png
  85      31 image/jpeg
  86      29 audio/mpeg
  87      28 application/ogg
  88      27 image/gif
  89      26 image/tiff
  90      26 audio/x-mp3
  91      23 audio/x-wav
  92      22 image/bmp
  93      21 audio/x-flac
  94      20 audio/x-mpegurl
  95      19 audio/x-mpeg
  96      18 video/x-ms-asf
  97      18 video/mpeg
  98      18 audio/x-scpls
  99      18 application/x-ogg
 100      17 audio/x-musepack
 101      16 video/x-ms-wmv
 102      16 video/x-msvideo
 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>
 109
 110 <p><strong>Update 2013-01-16 13:35</strong>: Updated numbers after
 111 discovering a typo in my script.</p>