No /etc/printcap file in Karmic

[Patrice Vetsel]

Binary package hint: cups

cups 1.3.11-1ubuntu6 under Karmic amd64.

There is no /etc/printcap file so some softwares have problems (like bibble b5) or may be like in this old bug 282667.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Is cups-bsd installed on your system?

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

Yes I have cups-bsd 1.3.11-1ubuntu6

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

Arglll, doing a re-install of it (cups-bsd) -> creation of /etc/printcap file (link)

I need to re-confirm the bug with a fresh install

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

Ok, looking at another computer where I'v installed the same fresh iso (18 aout 2009), /etc/printcap is missing, cups-bsd installed, and after a reinstallation of cups-bsd, /etc/printcap is created.

I'm going to test (for others reasons) a new iso (20 aout 2009) with a clean/fresh install

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Patrice, thank you very much for your test results. Now I understand this bug:

On a new installation it easily happens that CUPS is not yet installed and started when the post-install script of cups-bsd is executed. The script only works on creating the /etc/printcap link if /etc/cups/cupsd.conf exists, which requires CUPS to be installed. In addition it links to /var/run/cups/printcap only if the file exists, which requires the CUPS daemon already to be running, To assure that CUPS is already running before the script gets started, we would need to make cups-bsd depend on CUPS, but this is not required for any other functionality of cups-bsd. The main functionality is to provide command line printing utilities which are compatible to the ones of BSD's LPD. These can be used without the cups package to be installed on the local machine, by specifying a remote CUPS server in /etc/cups/client.conf.

Therefore I will move the /etc/printcap functionality to the cups package, to avoid introducing a new dependency. The impact to the system is small, only some bytes for a symlink.

[Patrice Vetsel (vetsel-patrice)]

Great ! Thanks.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package cups - 1.3.11-1ubuntu7

---------------
cups (1.3.11-1ubuntu7) karmic; urgency=low

  * debian/cups-bsd.postinst, debian/cups.postinst: Moved handling of
    /etc/printcap symlink from the post-install script of the cups-bsd
    package to the cups package. Should assure that the symlink gets
    also set on initial system installation (LP: #415825).

  * debian/local/filters/cpdftocps: Updated filter to not use the pdftops
    filter of CUPS, as from version 1.3.11 on CUPS' pdftops filter integrates
    the call of pstops, and in the PDF workflow this would duplicate the
    application of page management options, like N-up, even/odd pages, and
    even the number of copies for some printers (LP: #412709).

 -- Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:16:33 +0100

[Rael Gugelmin Cunha (rael-gc)]

I just installed Willy (15.10) and I have both cups and cups-bsd installed.

But I had to manually create /etc/printcap symlink from /var/run/cups/printcap in order to get my printer available under wine.