on media (mime) types
Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:34:27 +0100
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Checking /etc/mime.types  on  my  Artix(Arch)  installation  I  was 
surprised to find that the  type text/markdown  was  missing.  Easy
enough to  add  manually, but  I started wondering about mime types
and who managed the list.

It turns out  that it's the IANA who manages  mime, or rather media
types as they are now known.

https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml

What surprised me is that  IANA doesn't care about file extensions,
so you won't find the most up to date mime.types file there.

The Debian package "media-types" says this:

"The  /etc/mime.types  file  is   compiled  by  hand  using  mostly
information  provided by  the Internet  Assigned Numbers  Authority
(IANA)."

Oh.So  there's   no  official  registry  of   file  extensions  <=>
mime.types.  Interesting.  No  wonder  markdown is  missing  in  my
mime.types, it's probably ancient.

Checking the Debian package, I found  that it is indeed more recent
that that of Arch Linux (Artix) so hop, I replaced  mine  with  the
Debian file.

I can't help thinking that the lack of a registry is odd though.


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