Comment 13 for bug 647460

The packages foomatic-gui and python-foomatic install without problems, only printconf-gui does not instal;l as it depends on foomatic-db, foomatic-db-hpijs, and foomatic-db-gutenprint.

For testing I have installed printconf now overriding the dependencies:

sudo dpkg -i --force-depends printconf_0.7.9.3_all.deb

There are the following problems with printconf as it comes from upstream, especially of printconf interacting with CUPS:

1. printconf requires to be started as root, This requirement is not needed by Ubuntu, as it uses the lpadmin group feature of CUPS. printconf has probably many incompatibilities with this feature. One incompatibility which I have seen is that it restarts the CUPS daemon (which a correctly written printer setup tool does not need). There may be further problems like directly writing into config files in /etc/cups/.

2. It uses the deprecated usb:/dev/usb/lp0 URIs which are not supported by CUPS any more.

3. It only supports printer/driver pairs defined by Foomatic XML data in /usr/share/foomatic. It does not even support ready-made PPD files in /usr/share/ppd and subdirectories. Also PPD generators in /usr/lib/cups/driver/ and /usr/share/cups/drv/ are not supported. So it will not find most drivers on a Ubuntu system, as they are using PPD generators or ready-made PPDs.

4. It tries to set up queues for connected printers automatically although they have already queues. Probably it does not recognize the URIs of the current CUPS. After failing to set up print queues it does not start its GUI.

I do not know how much this tool is usable with non-CUPS spoolers as it is perhaps the only GUI tool for setting up printers . The inability to use ready-made PPDs for PostScript printers (they are supported by Foomatic, Foomatic is the only way to use them on non-CUPS spoolers) restricts it also a lot there.

My recommendations:

Due to the tool requiring a Foomatic database the dependency on foomatic-db cannot be removed. The dependency on foomatic-db-hpijs has to be removed as foomatic-db-hpijs is discontinued upstream. foomatic-db-gutenprint should go into the Recommends, as its absence does not make printconf unusable. I also would let printconf conflict with cups, as it actually does not work with the current CUPS versions. printconf simply did not follow the development of CUPS.

This would leave the package uninstallable on a Ubuntu Desktop system, but a Ubuntu Desktop system has CUPS-based printing and printconf really does not work with current CUPS.

Perhaps one should even remove it from Ubuntu, as Ubuntu uses CUPS for printing. On Debian one could leave it in, but only with the dependency changes which I mentioned above.

If we remove it from Ubuntu, I could add a transitional package to system-config-printer so that users get migrated to system-config-printer.

For everyone reading this who is simply a user, use system-config-printer.