Too many entries for Parallel Port in configuration wizard

[Patrice Vetsel]

Binary package hint: system-config-printer

Open s-c-p
Add new printer
If user have a parallel printer, he have 3 choices :
* Gutenprint Parallel Port #1
* Gutenprint Parallel Port #1
* LPT #1

I think it's very disturbing, and no explications are given.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

This is a problem of gutenprint. They provide special backends for Canon and Epson inkjets on the parallel port and these backends do not check whether there is actually a Canon or Epson printer.

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

May be it's a s-c-p problem to not implement this fact ?

s-c-p should ask gutenprint for backends, and present user just one lpt backend with option (canon/epson/standard...)

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

We should have the possibility to configure a LPT printer without having it plugged. (as for usb Bug #151182)
And an enhancement will be to say this printer is just LPT (in s-c-p), and s-c-p configure canon/epson/other backends when user choose canon/epson/other driver.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

The problem of showing three entries for the parallel port is not a problem of system-config-printer. system-config-printer only asks CUPS for available devices, doing an IPP request equivalent to "lpinfo -l -v". CUPS then starts all backends in /usr/lib/cups/backend/ without command line arguments. The entries which you see are derived from the backends' answers. The two entries of Gutenprint are from the "canon" and "epson" backends from Gutenprint and this problem is handled in bug 104166.

The problem of not being able to set up local printers without having the printer connected and turned on is an upstream problem of CUPS. See bug 151182 for more.

Please continue the discussion in bug 104166 or bug 151182 depending on which problem you want to talk about.