[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#516335: CUPS requires ttf-freefont to print plain text

[sacrificial-spam-address at horizon.com]

Package: cups
Version: 1.3.9-14

I just upgraded, and printing of plain text files stopped working.
I don't know how it used to work, but it now runs
texttopdf | pdftopdf | pdftops
to print to a postscript printer.  And texttopdf tries to open FreeMono.ttf,
which wasn't installed and pukes..

D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Connected to 192.35.100.71:9100 (IPv4)...
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] backendRunLoop(print_fd=0, device_fd=5, use_bc=1, side_cb=0xf7febfc0)
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Page = 612x792; 12,12 to 600,780
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Could not open "/usr/share/cups/fonts/FreeMono.ttf": No such file or directory
W [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Ignored bad font "FreeMono.ttf"
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] Discarding unused printer-state-changed event...
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Could not open "/usr/share/cups/fonts/FreeMono.ttf": No such file or directory
W [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Ignored bad font "FreeMono.ttf"
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] Discarding unused printer-state-changed event...
E [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] No usable font available
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] Discarding unused printer-state-changed event...
E [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] PID 3882 (/usr/lib/cups/filter/texttopdf) stopped with status 1!

It then produces a damaged pdf file which causes problems for the next stage...

E [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] PDF file is damaged - attempting to
reconstruct xref table...
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] Discarding unused printer-state-changed event...
E [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Couldn't find trailer dictionary
E [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] [Job 104091] Couldn't read xref table
D [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] Discarding unused printer-state-changed event...
E [20/Feb/2009:17:41:08 +0000] PID 3883 (/usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftopdf) stopped
with status 1!

Leading to the extremely misleading status error message "Couldn't read
xref table".  If the *first* error had shown up on the status page,
it would have made tracking this down a lot easier.

Perhaps that should be upgraded from "Recommends" to "Depends"?
Or if it's going to stay like that, a more comprehensible error
message?

Or perhaps just use the available texttops filter?
Or even dump it straight to the printer and let it deal with it itself?