Comment 11 for bug 1656790

First, keep in mind that one source package (upstream project) can have several binary packages in Ubuntu, each containing a certain component of the project. To get the complete project installed you need to install all binary packages, if you do not need all of the functionality you can leave out one or another binary package.

Also take into account that you cannot combine binary packages of different version. You need to install all of the binary packages.

So let us see which binary packages of system-config-printer you have installed:

dpkg -l | grep 1.5.7+2016

You will see a list of some packages. You have to update all of them, all at once, with a single "dpkg -i ..." command line.

So look at the binary packages of the desired newer version:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/system-config-printer/1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/system-config-printer/1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1/+build/13297396

See the section "Built files" under the last link.

Download all .deb files from here and install the ones form which you have the old version installed with a single command line, like for example:

dpkg -i python3-cupshelpers_1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1_all.deb system-config-printer-common_1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1_all.deb system-config-printer-gnome_1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1_all.deb system-config-printer-udev_1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb system-config-printer_1.5.9+20170825-0ubuntu1_all.deb

This will most probably work. If not, we need to rebuild the source package for your distribution version, but try this first and tell whether this works. If not, I will show you how to do the rebuild.