Debian Bug report logs - #598639
foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:39:18 +0200

Package: foomatic-gui
Version: 0.7.9.3
Severity: serious

The printer setup tools provided by the foomatic-gui source package, 
printconf and foomatic-gui are not usable any more in modern CUPS 
environments.

There are several problems which make the mentioned printer setup tools 
not working with modern CUPS environments.


1. Only PPDs generated by Foomatic are supported. Instead of asking CUPS 
for available PPDs/drivers ("lpinfo -l -m" or appropriate IPP request) 
it only looks up the local Foomatic XML database in /usr/share/foomatic. 
This makes a lot of available drivers not seen:

  a. Ready-made PPDs in /usr/share/ppd and subdirectories (PPDs for
     PostScript printers supplied by the printer manufacturers, SpliX,
     foo2zjs, LSB-based driver packages from OpenPrinting)
  b. PPDs supplied via PPD generators in /usr/lib/cups/driver/
     (CUPS Raster driver of Gutenprint, compressed PPD file archives of
     newer packages, like ijsgutenprint-ppds, foomatic-db-compressed-
     ppds)
  c. PPD files generated on-the-fly by the CUPS DDK with CUPS DDK .drv
     source files in /usr/share/cups/drv/ (HPLIP, CUPS' own PPD files).

So the newest and most sophisticated, especially manufacturer-supplied 
drivers are not available through printconf and foomatic-gui. This can 
lead to a lot of false bug reports due to "unsupported" printers.

At least for CUPS a printer setup tool should not directly access the 
Foomatic XML data. Once, the data is available through the 
/usr/lib/cups/driver/foomatic PPD generator, and second, other PPD 
sources available to CUPS can be used, without taking care of them 
individually.


2. (Only printconf) Use of deprecated device-based USB URIs, like 
usb:/dev/usb/lp0. These URIs are not supported by CUPS any more as they 
only work if there is only one USB printer connected to the machine. As 
soon as there is more than one USB printer print queues (with 
model-specific drivers) do not stay assigned to the correct printer 
after rebooting. Therefore the new device-ID-based URIs have to be used. 
foomatic-gui uses them though.



Possible fixes are:

1. (A lot of work and re-inventing the wheel) Fix the software to poll 
the PPD/driver info and the PPDs itself from CUPS when CUPS is in use.

2. Let foomatic-gui and printconf conflict with the "cups" package, so 
that they do not get installed on systems where the printing environment 
is CUPS.

3. Remove the foomatic-gui package from Debian altogether (recommended 
if upstream development has been discontinued).



Recommended replacement for CUPS users is system-config-printer.

   Till

Message #10 received at 598639@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Didier 'OdyX' Raboud" <didier@raboud.com>

To: 598639@bugs.debian.org, Debian Release Team <debian-release@lists.debian.org>

Cc: Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmail.com>, Debian Printing Group <debian-printing@lists.debian.org>

Subject: [RC: #598639] foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:01:30 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Le Thursday 30 September 2010 19:39:18 Till Kamppeter, vous avez écrit :
> Package: foomatic-gui
> Version: 0.7.9.3
> Severity: serious
> 
> The printer setup tools provided by the foomatic-gui source package,
> printconf and foomatic-gui are not usable any more in modern CUPS
> environments.
> 
> (…) [See bug log.]
> 
> Possible fixes are:
> 
> 1. (A lot of work and re-inventing the wheel) Fix the software to poll
> the PPD/driver info and the PPDs itself from CUPS when CUPS is in use.
> 
> 2. Let foomatic-gui and printconf conflict with the "cups" package, so
> that they do not get installed on systems where the printing environment
> is CUPS.
> 
> 3. Remove the foomatic-gui package from Debian altogether (recommended
> if upstream development has been discontinued).
> 
> Recommended replacement for CUPS users is system-config-printer.
> 
>     Till

Hi dear Release Team,

as discussed over IRC and at the Bern BSP, I propose to remove the foomatic-gui 
source package altogether from Squeeze (at least), for the following reasons:

* Doesn't work with CUPS (the most used printing system), see this bug log,
* Is basically not maintained, see the bugs reported on it, and their ages.

This would have the following consequences:
* many users without upgrade path (see the popcon numbers) but the functionality 
is available in other packages, spread in various desktop tools,
* a bug on tasksel, (printconf is in desktop and print-server)
* a bug on brdesktop-common, which recommends printconf.

As further argueing, the first proposed solution is probably not doable at that 
point in freeze and the second solution proposed (conflict against cups) would 
not help much, as tasks should be updated anyway. 

As for the future, as this is a native package, it has to get updated by his 
upstream maintainer to be useful, and I don't see the Printing Team taking over 
that task.

Release Team; what do you think ?

Cheers, OdyX

-- 
Didier Raboud, proud Debian Maintainer (DM).
CH-1020 Renens
didier@raboud.com

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Message #15 received at 598639@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Mehdi Dogguy <mehdi@dogguy.org>

To: Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <didier@raboud.com>

Cc: 598639@bugs.debian.org, Debian Release Team <debian-release@lists.debian.org>, Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmail.com>, Debian Printing Group <debian-printing@lists.debian.org>

Subject: Re: [RC: #598639] foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:47:11 +0100

On 11/27/2010 02:01 PM, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> 
> as discussed over IRC and at the Bern BSP, I propose to remove the 
> foomatic-gui source package altogether from Squeeze (at least), for 
> the following reasons:
> 
> * Doesn't work with CUPS (the most used printing system), see this 
> bug log, * Is basically not maintained, see the bugs reported on it,
>  and their ages.
> 

I've added a removal hint for it.

> * a bug on tasksel, (printconf is in desktop and print-server)

A fix will be comitted in tasksel's Git repository (and an upload will
follow).

> * a bug on brdesktop-common, which recommends printconf.
> 

Julien reported #605595 earlier today... I'll followup there about
foomatic-gui.

Regards,

-- 
Mehdi Dogguy مهدي الدڤي
http://dogguy.org/

Message #20 received at 598639@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Moritz Muehlenhoff <jmm@debian.org>

To: Chris Lawrence <lawrencc@debian.org>

Cc: 598639@bugs.debian.org, Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmail.com>, Debian Printing Group <debian-printing@lists.debian.org>, didier@raboud.com

Subject: Re: [RC: #598639] foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2011 22:42:39 +0200

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 02:01:30PM +0100, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:
> Le Thursday 30 September 2010 19:39:18 Till Kamppeter, vous avez écrit :
> > Package: foomatic-gui
> > Version: 0.7.9.3
> > Severity: serious
> > 
> > The printer setup tools provided by the foomatic-gui source package,
> > printconf and foomatic-gui are not usable any more in modern CUPS
> > environments.
> > 
> > (…) [See bug log.]
> > 
> > Possible fixes are:
> > 
> > 1. (A lot of work and re-inventing the wheel) Fix the software to poll
> > the PPD/driver info and the PPDs itself from CUPS when CUPS is in use.
> > 
> > 2. Let foomatic-gui and printconf conflict with the "cups" package, so
> > that they do not get installed on systems where the printing environment
> > is CUPS.
> > 
> > 3. Remove the foomatic-gui package from Debian altogether (recommended
> > if upstream development has been discontinued).
> > 
> > Recommended replacement for CUPS users is system-config-printer.
> > 
> >     Till
> 
> Hi dear Release Team,
> 
> as discussed over IRC and at the Bern BSP, I propose to remove the foomatic-gui 
> source package altogether from Squeeze (at least), for the following reasons:
> 
> * Doesn't work with CUPS (the most used printing system), see this bug log,
> * Is basically not maintained, see the bugs reported on it, and their ages.
> 
> This would have the following consequences:
> * many users without upgrade path (see the popcon numbers) but the functionality 
> is available in other packages, spread in various desktop tools,
> * a bug on tasksel, (printconf is in desktop and print-server)
> * a bug on brdesktop-common, which recommends printconf.
> 
> As further argueing, the first proposed solution is probably not doable at that 
> point in freeze and the second solution proposed (conflict against cups) would 
> not help much, as tasks should be updated anyway. 
> 
> As for the future, as this is a native package, it has to get updated by his 
> upstream maintainer to be useful, and I don't see the Printing Team taking over 
> that task.
> 
> Release Team; what do you think ?

Chris, almost a year has passed. Do you agree with removal from
unstable or what's your plan for foomatic-gui?

Cheers,
        Moritz

Message #25 received at 598639@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Didier Raboud <didier@raboud.com>

To: Chris Lawrence <lawrencc@debian.org>, mia@qa.debian.org

Cc: Moritz Muehlenhoff <jmm@debian.org>, 598639@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [RC: #598639] foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013 08:30:30 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hi Chris,

Le mardi, 9 août 2011 22.42:39, Moritz Muehlenhoff a écrit :
> Chris, almost a year has passed. Do you agree with removal from
> unstable or what's your plan for foomatic-gui?

It's been one more year-and-a-half without any action, upload, or handling of 
the bugs of foomatic-gui, which hasn't entered testing for almost 500 days and 
hasn't been in the two past stable releases. In particular, there was no 
especially not on this one claiming that foomatic-gui doesn't work in modern 
CUPS environment.

Also, printconf asks the user to send autodetect information to foomatic-
db@packages.qa.debian.org and we don't do anything with this information, so 
if we can't agree to removing foomatic-gui (but I think enough time was given 
to the maintainer), I intend to NMU it to make that hint point to foomatic-
gui@packages.qa.debian.org instead.

Cheers,

Didier

P.S. CC'ing MIA.

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Message #30 received at 598639@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Moritz Mühlenhoff <jmm@inutil.org>

To: Didier Raboud <didier@raboud.com>

Cc: Chris Lawrence <lawrencc@debian.org>, mia@qa.debian.org, 598639@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [RC: #598639] foomatic-gui/printconf: Not working in modern CUPS environments

Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:54:09 +0200

On Mon, Jun 03, 2013 at 08:30:30AM +0200, Didier Raboud wrote:
> Hi Chris,
> 
> Le mardi, 9 août 2011 22.42:39, Moritz Muehlenhoff a écrit :
> > Chris, almost a year has passed. Do you agree with removal from
> > unstable or what's your plan for foomatic-gui?
> 
> It's been one more year-and-a-half without any action, upload, or handling of 
> the bugs of foomatic-gui, which hasn't entered testing for almost 500 days and 
> hasn't been in the two past stable releases. In particular, there was no 
> especially not on this one claiming that foomatic-gui doesn't work in modern 
> CUPS environment.
> 
> Also, printconf asks the user to send autodetect information to foomatic-
> db@packages.qa.debian.org and we don't do anything with this information, so 
> if we can't agree to removing foomatic-gui (but I think enough time was given 
> to the maintainer), I intend to NMU it to make that hint point to foomatic-
> gui@packages.qa.debian.org instead.

I've just filed a removal bug against ftp.debian.org

Cheers,
        Moritz

Message #35 received at 598639-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Debian FTP Masters <ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org>

To: 249674-done@bugs.debian.org,263090-done@bugs.debian.org,269783-done@bugs.debian.org,279831-done@bugs.debian.org,306413-done@bugs.debian.org,317659-done@bugs.debian.org,334929-done@bugs.debian.org,377828-done@bugs.debian.org,401475-done@bugs.debian.org,404765-done@bugs.debian.org,410443-done@bugs.debian.org,419638-done@bugs.debian.org,446718-done@bugs.debian.org,491582-done@bugs.debian.org,496755-done@bugs.debian.org,532254-done@bugs.debian.org,547898-done@bugs.debian.org,598639-done@bugs.debian.org,616812-done@bugs.debian.org,

Cc: foomatic-gui@packages.debian.org, foomatic-gui@packages.qa.debian.org

Subject: Bug#712523: Removed package(s) from unstable

Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:02:44 +0000

Version: 0.7.9.5+nmu1+rm

Dear submitter,

as the package foomatic-gui has just been removed from the Debian archive
unstable we hereby close the associated bug reports.  We are sorry
that we couldn't deal with your issue properly.

For details on the removal, please see http://bugs.debian.org/712523

The version of this package that was in Debian prior to this removal
can still be found using http://snapshot.debian.org/.

This message was generated automatically; if you believe that there is
a problem with it please contact the archive administrators by mailing
ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Ansgar Burchardt (the ftpmaster behind the curtain)

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