[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#429715: "Using Debian to print to a remote Debian CUPS server is dang hard"

[Kurt Pfeifle]

> Btw, the current default is not entirely useless:
> 
> When setting up a Samba server in combination with CUPS, Samba will
> import any printer offered by the local CUPS and make them available.
> Of course, they won't show on the IPP port unless you enable browsing
> as above, but they will still be available via Samba by default.

How to configure Samba has *nothing* to do with *this* bug report.
AFAIK, Samba usually serves printing to Windows clients which are no
CUPS clients.

And, BTW, "Samba will import any printer offered..." is only true if

  (a) there exists a [printers] section in smb.conf, plus
  (b) there is "load printers = yes" in smb.conf, plus
  (c) Samba is linked against the CUPS libraries (or CUPS is told to
      create a printcap)

[but all 3 of these are enabled by default].


Whatever the default printing setup in a purely Debian environment is,
it *IS* damn hard to discover for a user how to use and how to change
it.

I'm not sure, if there is a dpkg-reconfigure thingie (for a user to set
it up by answering a few questions) for the cupsys, cupsys-client and
cupsys-bsd packages in Debian...

In any case, to make CUPS a little bit easier to use for Debian users,
a dpkg-reconfigure should ask the user if he wants to use his local
cupsys server for printing; and if "no", which is the remote print
server to use. Based on that info the client.conf should be set up.
(If above question is answered "yes", a check for installation of
cupsys should happen, and recommend or initiate installation if not
present).




-- 
Kurt Pfeifle
System & Network Printing Consultant ---- Linux/Unix/Windows/Samba/CUPS
Infotec Deutschland GmbH  .....................  Hedelfinger Strasse 58
A RICOH Company  ...........................  D-70327 Stuttgart/Germany