Comment 0 for bug 871985

It appears a patch was added to Gnome back in July that requires FirewallD to be running in order to add a network printer.
see: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/commits-list/2011-July/msg09761.html

This only appears to affect those using the Gnome 3 desktop environment, and this problem is not present in Unity, so you can still add the pinter in Unity's control panel, but users wanting to use Gnome will encounter this. The specific error message is:
 "FirewallD is not running. Network printer detection needs services mdns, ipp, ipp-client and samba-client enabled on firewall."

The documentation in the mentioned patch suggests this behavior is actually intentional. However, FirewallD is, as far as I know, specific to Fedora.

1) release: Ubuntu Oneiric Beta 2 (64 bit, but others likely to be affected)

2) issue is more specific to the Gnome 3 desktop environment as a whole, although there may be individual packages that can be patched to circumvent this behavior

3) I expected the previous behavior of being able to add a network printer without having a package that does not even exist for Ubuntu

4) I got this nice error message that tells me "FirewallD is not running. Network printer detection needs services mdns, ipp, ipp-client and samba-client enabled on firewall."

As far as a solution goes, a documented work-around may be a good idea (such as an FAQ entry that says simply to install the network printer in Unity), at least until a more permanent solution can be found.

This is bug was originally asked as a question here: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-nettool/+question/173836 but it was suggested that a bug report be submitted instead.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.2.0-0ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Oct 10 14:49:32 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-control-center
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta amd64 (20110921.2)
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
 deja-dup 20.0-0ubuntu3
 gnome-bluetooth 3.2.0-0ubuntu1
 indicator-datetime 0.3.0-0ubuntu3