Why is Fedora a multimedia disaster? - Here is why.

[Ian Malone]

Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Gérard Milmeister wrote:
>> On Wed, 2007-04-18 at 22:55 +0200, Gérard Milmeister wrote:
>>
>>> Meta-data (using extended file attributes) would be faster, since it
>>> wouldn't involve opening the file and trying to guess the file type from
>>> the file content. If you have selinux enabled, each file access involves
>>> accessing extended file attributes.
>> See also:
>> http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/CommonExtendedAttributes
>> The problem is, how to get the attribute to the file?
>> Applications creating the files must set it explicitly, and files
>> imported from outside must also get the attribute somehow.
>>
> One way would be to have a utility that would go through the files,
> determine the mime-type, and set the attributes. Run it as a nightly
> cron job to index new files. You could also have the file manager do
> it for untagged files that you have write permission for. You would
> have to start building mime-type attribute awareness into
> applications, but it could be done. It will have a performance
> penalty, but probably not too much more then SE Linux by itself...
> 

Cache them: guess the file type if unassigned or outdated.
It's only the file browser that needs to do it, and if it
can take the time to generate preview clips for pictures
and movies then discovering the mime type once isn't really
a burden.

-- 
imalone