Petter Reinholdtsen

Seven and twelve years ago, I measured what the most supported MIME type in Debian was, first by analysing the desktop files in all packages in the archive, then by analysing the DEP-11 AppStream data set. I guess it is time to repeat the measurement, only for unstable as last time:

Debian Unstable:

  count MIME type
  ----- -----------------------
     63 image/png
     63 image/jpeg
     57 image/tiff
     54 image/gif
     51 image/bmp
     50 audio/mpeg
     48 text/plain
     42 audio/x-mp3
     40 application/ogg
     39 audio/x-wav
     39 audio/x-flac
     36 audio/x-vorbis+ogg
     35 audio/x-mpeg
     34 audio/x-mpegurl
     34 audio/ogg
     33 application/x-ogg
     32 audio/mp4
     31 audio/x-scpls
     31 application/pdf
     29 audio/x-ms-wma

The list was created like this using a sid chroot:

cat /var/lib/apt/lists/*sid*_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz | \
  zcat | awk '/^  - \S+\/\S+$/ {print $2 }' | sort | \
  uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20

It is nice to see that the same number of packages now support PNG and JPEG. Last time JPEG had more support than PNG. Most of the MIME types are known to me, but the 'audio/x-scpls' one I have no idea what represent, except it being an audio format. To find the packages claiming support for this format, the appstreamcli command from the appstream package can be used:

% appstreamcli what-provides mediatype audio/x-scpls | grep Package: | sort -u
Package: alsaplayer-common
Package: amarok
Package: audacious
Package: brasero
Package: celluloid
Package: clapper
Package: clementine
Package: cynthiune.app
Package: elisa
Package: gtranscribe
Package: kaffeine
Package: kmplayer
Package: kylin-burner
Package: lollypop
Package: mediaconch-gui
Package: mediainfo-gui
Package: mplayer-gui
Package: mpv
Package: mystiq
Package: parlatype
Package: parole
Package: pragha
Package: qmmp
Package: rhythmbox
Package: sayonara
Package: shotcut
Package: smplayer
Package: soundconverter
Package: strawberry
Package: syncplay
Package: vlc
%

Look like several video and auto tools understand the format. Similarly one can check out the number of packages supporting the STL format commonly used for 3D printing:

% appstreamcli what-provides mediatype model/stl | grep Package: | sort -u
Package: cura
Package: freecad
Package: open3d-viewer
%

How strange the slic3r and prusa-slicer packages do not support STL. Perhaps just missing package metadata? Luckily the amount of package metadata in Debian is getting better, and hopefully this way of locating relevant packages for any file format will be the preferred one soon.

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

The LinuxCNC project is trotting along. And I believe this great software system for numerical control of machines such as milling machines, lathes, plasma cutters, routers, cutting machines, robots and hexapods, would do even better with more in-person developer gatherings, so we plan to organise such gathering this summer too.

This year we would like to invite to a small LinuxCNC and free software fabrication workshop/gathering in Norway this summer for the weekend starting July 4th 2025. New this year is the slightly larger scope, and we invite people also outside the LinuxCNC community to join. As earlier, we suggest to organize it as an unconference, where the participants create the program upon arrival.

The location is a metal workshop 15 minutes drive away from to the Gardermoen airport (OSL), where there is a lot of space and a hotel only 5 minutes away by car. We plan to fire up the barbeque in the evenings.

Please let us know if you would like to join. We track the list of participants on a simple pad, please add yourself there if you are interested in joining.

The NUUG Foundation has on our request offered to handle any money involved with this gathering, in other words holding any sponsor funds and paying any bills. NUUG Foundation is a spinnoff from the NUUG member organisation here in Norway with long ties to the free software and open standards communities.

As usual we hope to find sponsors to pay for food, lodging and travel.

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address 15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.