blog/data/2016-02-04-appstream-firmware.txt

   1 Title: Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support
   2 Tags: english, debian
   3 Date: 2016-02-04 16:40
   4
   5 <p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
   6 is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
   7 convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
   8 firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it.  This can
   9 be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
  10 about. :)</p>
  11
  12 <p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
  13 file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
  14 picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
  15 unstable.  In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
  16 by the kernel during kernel module loading.  To find the package
  17 providing the example file, do like this:</p>
  18
  19 <blockquote><pre>
  20 % apt install appstream
  21 [...]
  22 % apt update
  23 [...]
  24 % appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
  25   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
  26 firmware-qlogic
  27 %
  28 </pre></blockquote>
  29
  30 <p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
  31 appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
  32 a way appstream can use.</p>
  33
  34 <p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
  35 given MIME type.  This is very useful when you get a file you do not
  36 know how to handle.  First find the mime type using <tt>file
  37 --mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
  38 it.  Lets say you got an SVG file.  Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
  39 and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
  40
  41 <blockquote><pre>
  42 % apt install appstream
  43 [...]
  44 % apt update
  45 [...]
  46 % appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
  47   awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
  48 bkchem
  49 phototonic
  50 inkscape
  51 shutter
  52 tetzle
  53 geeqie
  54 xia
  55 pinta
  56 gthumb
  57 karbon
  58 comix
  59 mirage
  60 viewnior
  61 postr
  62 ristretto
  63 kolourpaint4
  64 eog
  65 eom
  66 gimagereader
  67 midori
  68 %
  69 </pre></blockquote>
  70
  71 <p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
  72 packages providing appstream metadata.</p>