[Pkg-cups-devel] Bug#613537: cups: Please allow browsing remote printers by default, or document why not

[Josh Triplett]

Package: cups
Version: 1.4.5-3
Severity: wishlist

By default, cups has BrowseRemoteProtocols empty, which means cups will
not show remote printers automatically.  Please consider changing this
in the default cupsd.conf to "BrowseRemoteProtocols CUPS dnssd", which
will automatically discover printers shared on the network and make them
available.  This improves the Just Works factor of CUPS when you already
have a print server, or when connecting to a network that already has a
print server.  (For instance, it makes printing to the printers at my
university Just Work when I've connected to that network.)

As far as I know, this shouldn't cause any problems.  However, if known
issues exist with this setting that require keeping the current default,
then please consider documenting those issues somewhere, such as in a
comment next to the browse settings in the default configuration file.

Thanks,
Josh Triplett

-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.37-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages cups depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.112+nmu2       add and remove users and groups
ii  bc                      1.06.95-2        The GNU bc arbitrary precision cal
ii  cups-client             1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  cups-common             1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  cups-ppdc               1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]   1.5.38           Debian configuration management sy
ii  ghostscript             9.01~dfsg-1      interpreter for the PostScript lan
ii  libavahi-client3        0.6.28-3         Avahi client library
ii  libavahi-common3        0.6.28-3         Avahi common library
ii  libc6                   2.11.2-11        Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libcups2                1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupscgi1             1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsdriver1          1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsimage2           1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsmime1            1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsppdc1            1.4.5-3          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.4.1-2          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgcc1                 1:4.4.5-10       GCC support library
ii  libgnutls26             2.10.4-2         the GNU TLS library - runtime libr
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2        1.8.3+dfsg-4     MIT Kerberos runtime libraries - k
ii  libijs-0.35             0.35-7           IJS raster image transport protoco
ii  libkrb5-3               1.8.3+dfsg-4     MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii  liblcms1                1.18.dfsg-1.2+b3 Color management library
ii  libldap-2.4-2           2.4.23-7         OpenLDAP libraries
ii  libpam0g                1.1.1-6.1        Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpaper1               1.1.24           library for handling paper charact
ii  libpoppler5             0.12.4-1.2       PDF rendering library
ii  libslp1                 1.2.1-7.8        OpenSLP libraries
ii  libstdc++6              4.4.5-10         The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libusb-0.1-4            2:0.1.12-17      userspace USB programming library
ii  lsb-base                3.2-27           Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  poppler-utils           0.12.4-1.2       PDF utilitites (based on libpopple
ii  procps                  1:3.2.8-10       /proc file system utilities
ii  ssl-cert                1.0.28           simple debconf wrapper for OpenSSL
ii  ttf-freefont            20100919-1       Freefont Serif, Sans and Mono True
ii  zlib1g                  1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime

Versions of packages cups recommends:
ii  avahi-daemon                 0.6.28-3    Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD daemon
pn  cups-driver-gutenprint       <none>      (no description available)
ii  foomatic-filters             4.0.6-1     OpenPrinting printer support - fil
ii  ghostscript-cups             9.01~dfsg-1 interpreter for the PostScript lan

Versions of packages cups suggests:
ii  cups-bsd                      1.4.5-3    Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
pn  cups-pdf                      <none>     (no description available)
ii  foomatic-db-compressed-ppds [ 20110209-1 OpenPrinting printer support - Com
ii  hplip                         3.10.6-2   HP Linux Printing and Imaging Syst
pn  smbclient                     <none>     (no description available)
ii  udev                          166-1      /dev/ and hotplug management daemo

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/cups/cupsd.conf changed [not included]

-- debconf information excluded