Bug 117606 - gnome-cups-add doesn't see usb printer
Summary: gnome-cups-add doesn't see usb printer
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: SUSE LINUX 10.0
Classification: openSUSE
Component: GNOME (show other bugs)
Version: Beta 4 Plus
Hardware: i686 All
: P2 - High : Normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Ruediger Oertel
QA Contact: E-mail List
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2005-09-16 23:48 UTC by Larry Ewing
Modified: 2006-02-06 22:00 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Found By: Other
Services Priority:
Business Priority:
Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: ---
IT Deployment: ---


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Description Larry Ewing 2005-09-16 23:48:19 UTC
attaching my usb brother hl-1440 printer caused gnome-cups-add to show up but
when I went to add the it did not show up in the detected area, instead I had to
manually choose the port and setttings.
Comment 1 Jeff Stedfast 2005-09-19 16:02:17 UTC
presumably this means that cups isn't detecting the printer for some reason.

do you have the cups-backends package installed? I just checked and my brand new
install does not so I presume neither does yours.

This is a Bad Thing(tm) and so someone needs to fix it so this package gets
installed by default.
Comment 2 JP Rosevear 2005-09-19 16:47:54 UTC
CCing AJ and Stefan for the selection issue.
Comment 3 Stefan Dirsch 2005-09-19 21:11:59 UTC
cups-backends is in no selection. Adding maintainer of cups-backends. 
Comment 4 Klaus Singvogel 2005-09-28 00:18:23 UTC
I'm not familiar with  gnome-cups-add, but CUPS itself.  
cups-backends isn't needed to detect USB printers, it contains additional backends, which 
come not along with the CUPS package. 
 
Sorry, but my CUPS system detects my Brother USB printer, so I cannot help much here: 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
prompt# /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb 
[...] 
direct usb://Brother/HL-5150D%20series "Brother HL-5150D series" "USB Printer #1" 
[...] 
prompt# rpm -qf /usr/lib/cups/backend/usb 
cups-1.1.23-21 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Comment 5 Jeff Stedfast 2005-10-12 19:40:39 UTC
the package needs to be included by default regardless or gnome-printer-add
won't be able to know that the prinetr is already configured and so will keep
prompting the user to configure her printer everytime she plugs it in or turns
it on.

the hal backend replaces the usb backend, there's no reason for both to exist.
Comment 6 Klaus Singvogel 2005-10-13 23:23:19 UTC
Very funny... :-)  
A package needs to be in default selection, as soon as the author of a piece of it (but not 
maintainer of the whole work area) says to do so? :-)  
  
Other graphical systems, like KDE, don't react like this if plugin with USB printers is done. 
Even more, they don't care if the user plugs out or in a USB printer and printing is still 
working, even a different USB device node is used. usb backend of CUPS itself doesn't care 
on USB bus layouts, etc. And this most important fact: printing by the usb backend of CUPS 
is working, even after a re-plugin is done. 
==> I don't see any need to have "cups-backend" package in the default selection. It's a to 
specific request from a single subsystem. 
  
I don't see the usb backend replacement given neither. If you insist on dropping such a 
backend, I need to drop the hal backend, as it is only used by "gnome-printer-add", but all 
other software components (admin SW, user SW, etc.) in our system are relaying on a 
working USB backend from CUPS package itself. 
 
The solution from my point of view (but maybe I missed something) 
If your software (=  gnome-printer-add) depends on the "cups-backends" subpackage, then 
add this dependency to the "gnome-printer-add" RPM spec file via the usual requirement 
keyword (= "Requires:"). 
Comment 7 Mark Gordon 2005-10-14 17:46:50 UTC
Arguably a complete solution would be:
- make gnome-cups-manager (the package that contains the gnome-printer-add
program) require cups-backend (or, equivalently, something provided by
cups-backend).
- add cups-backend to whatever selections would include gnome-cups-manager ("by
default" is admittedly overkill at this stage).
- add cups-backend to media in future as needed so as not to break
gnome-cups-manager installs.

Orthogonally, other software should probably migrate to HAL in the long term,
but that's outside the scope of this bug.  Once that happens, including the HAL
backend by default might become necessary.
Comment 8 Klaus Singvogel 2005-10-17 07:59:33 UTC
Yes, its outside the scope of this bug, but just want to let you know, what our HAL developers (kernel developers, like Kai Sievers) told me: the abstraction of HAL is done in such way, that the previous USB abstraction still works in the same way as before. Especially no adaption, when migrating to HAL, should be necessary in any code in the upper layers. If there is still any such adaption necessary, its an issue of HAL, which needs to be reported to get fixed.

I already told this Jeff a long time before. I saw his HAL backend only as an extension to the CUPS system (and therefore added it). The long term goal is to keep USB backend. This contains the advantage that our customers can ask public for support, e.g. on CUPS mailing lists, when having problems with backends.
Comment 9 Stefan Dirsch 2005-10-17 10:49:25 UTC
What is the conclusion WRT selection now?
Comment 10 JP Rosevear 2005-10-17 14:00:44 UTC
Klaus: It seems odd that we are moving everything else towards HAL except for cups.
Comment 11 Stefan Dirsch 2005-10-20 21:25:05 UTC
No conclusion. Ok. Let me know (reassign), when I should change anything in the selection.
Comment 12 JP Rosevear 2006-02-04 20:12:20 UTC
cups-backends should be in the GNOME selection, its in the NLD 10 selection now.  We prefer the hal backend.  gnome-cups-manager now correctly requires cups-backends as a dep.
Comment 13 Stefan Dirsch 2006-02-06 04:34:46 UTC
Which changes are exactly required now for selection of SUSE LINUX 10.1?
Comment 14 Klaus Singvogel 2006-02-06 09:27:48 UTC
Why don't you just add a appropriate Requires: line into the spec file?

This is honored by the package selection, and I already suggest this several months ago.
Comment 15 JP Rosevear 2006-02-06 19:19:37 UTC
Klaus, see comment #12, thats what we did.

Stefan, I think we just need to make sure its on the media now and we're good (I think it already is).
Comment 16 Stefan Dirsch 2006-02-06 20:18:47 UTC
> Stefan, I think we just need to make sure its on the media now and we're
> good (I think it already is).

Rudi can take care of this. I'm only maintaining the selections.
Comment 17 JP Rosevear 2006-02-06 22:00:09 UTC
Selections and media all taken care of now.