debconf prompt on upgrade from Maverick

[Steve Magoun]

Binary package hint: cups

When I upgraded from Maverick to Natty Beta 1, I got a debconf dialog asking me what to do about configuration changes to /etc/cups/cupsd.conf. I didn't expect this - I haven't (knowingly) made any changes to that file, and I expected the upgrader to handle it for me without my intervention.

I suspect most non-developer users would not know what 'cups' is and would not know which choice is best for them. This detracts from the overall upgrade experience.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: cups 1.4.6-4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-7.39-generic 2.6.38
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-7-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
CupsErrorLog:

Date: Tue Apr 5 17:32:50 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Beta amd64 (20100901.1)
Lpstat: Error: command ['lpstat', '-v'] failed with exit code 1: lpstat: No destinations added.
MachineType: Apple Inc. MacBookPro3,1
Papersize: letter
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-7-generic root=UUID=4b3d81ed-fb5d-4946-97c0-ec537e1bfa3f ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: cups
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-04 (1 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 03/05/08
dmi.bios.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.bios.version: MBP31.88Z.0070.B07.0803051658
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: Mac-F4238BC8
dmi.board.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.board.version: PVT
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset Tag#
dmi.chassis.type: 2
dmi.chassis.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: Mac-F4238BC8
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAppleInc.:bvrMBP31.88Z.0070.B07.0803051658:bd03/05/08:svnAppleInc.:pnMacBookPro3,1:pvr1.0:rvnAppleInc.:rnMac-F4238BC8:rvrPVT:cvnAppleInc.:ct2:cvrMac-F4238BC8:
dmi.product.name: MacBookPro3,1
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Apple Inc.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Did you change something in "Server"/"Settings" in system-config-printer ("System"/"Administration"/"Printing")? This changes /etc/cups/cupsd.conf and this causes the prompt during update.

Pitti, should we change something here?

[Steve Magoun (smagoun)]

@Till - I have no idea if I've changed anything in system-config-printer. I suppose it's possible. This is something users would certainly normally do, so I think the upgrader should gracefully handle this possibility. Can system-config-printer changes go to a /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.d/ so that we can avoid this problem in the future? Presumably not for Natty, but perhaps for Oneiric?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

In fact we already had a cupsd.conf.d/ kind of thing in the past, but dropped it because upstream never accepted the necessary patch for having an "include" command, and thus stuff kept breaking.

Unfortuantely it's very easy to make changes to cupsd.conf, though s-c-p etc. So far we tried to avoid the conffile prompt by not making any changes to the default configuration file. I don't see that we made any configuration change between maverick and natty, though?

So in short this is by no way a new problem. We could avoid the prompts by not making cupsd.conf a conffile, but then we could never ever change settings on upgrade again. Unfortunately cups is a real pain wrt. conffile management, I'm afraid :/

[Steve Magoun (smagoun)]

Reproduced this on upgrade from 12.04 to 12.10, upgrading from cups 1.5.3-oubuntu3 to 1.6.1-0ubuntu1