Bugzilla – Bug 1220520
Configure remote printer: does not disable local cups entirely
Last modified: 2024-07-12 12:47:17 UTC
Fresh installed Leap; Configure a remote printer; Get the message that the local cups will be disabled -> OK; But after that I get the message that the local cups is running again. It looks like YaST does only disable cups.service; cups.socket and cups.path, but not stop them (missing --now ?) After I stop the three units the config was successful.
In general regarding the YaST printer module: In practice the YaST printer module is no longer acually further developed since it was "converted from YCP to Ruby by YCP Killer" that happened in July 2013, see the yast2-printer.changes entry ---------------------------------------------------------- Wed Jul 31 08:37:43 UTC 2013 - yast-devel@opensuse.org - converted from YCP to Ruby by YCP Killer (https://github.com/yast/ycp-killer) - version 3.0.0 ---------------------------------------------------------- at https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/YaST:Head/yast2-printer/yast2-printer.changes?expand=1 My last change is dated Mon Jan 19 14:51:39 UTC 2015 and my last actual development enhancements are dated before it was "converted from YCP to Ruby by YCP Killer". Since that time the YaST printer module is kept working as is as far as possible with reasonable effort by YaST team members who know about how to deal with their generated Ruby code. Since my YCP code was converted into generated Ruby code it is no longer my code and it is no longer code that I could further develop with reasonable effort. Because the YaST printer module is based on the traditional way how printing had worked with CUPS <= 1.5.4 (in particular for printing in the network) within a traditional system environment at that time (in particular before systemd - i.e. with old SysVinit), the YaST printer module has various shortcomings and bugs with nowadays CUPS within a nowadays system environment. According to https://bugzilla.suse.com/page.cgi?id=status_resolution_matrix.html I can only close it as "wontfix" because this issue is a bug but I cannot fix it in practice in foreseeable future.
Johannes, I understand your frustration, but WONTFIX still isn't a good idea, and moves (actually copies) your frustration to the user. Let me assign the bug to the YaST team instead, who hopefully can fix this bug.
We do not maintain this module. It has a very special structure of its own, relying mostly on very long pipelines of shell commands (including for things that have better counterparts in all interpreted languages; like 'grep' or 'sed' and whatnot). Because of that, it was always hard to maintain and very difficult to debug. If this would be really needed by any paying customer with a maintenance contract, we'd have to rewrite it from scratch; anything else would be just burying new landmines. But in this day and age, there is really no need for a YaST module for printing anymore anyway. Every single one of the major desktops has much simpler and more intuitive tools for setting up a printer; be it KDE Plasma, GNOME or Xfce, or all their derivatives. In addition to that, there is the CUPS web UI. And in a corporate environment printers are administered centrally. YaST printer has been factually dead for a long time. May it rest in peace.
Restoring the old asignee and bug resolution.
Please refrain from reopening this again. This issue has been discussed to death numerous time already. Even if a community builds around this, this would be a major effort, and still the only viable solution would be a complete rewrite. The endless shell pipelines that are called from this YaST module, impossible to debug and to maintain, let alone test, would be painful enough. But together with that auto-translated code it becomes even worse, because the YCP-to-Ruby code converter aimed at code correctness, and readability and maintainability suffered heavily from it. It's hard to understand (let alone change) for hard-core Ruby developers who are also (!) hard-core YCP developers. The number of such people in this world can be counted on one hand. YaST printer was a useful tool 15-20 years ago when there were no alternatives. But today, there are several; there is simply no need to try to keep this zombie code alive.
Stefan Hundhammer thank you for your explanatory reasoning why that old outdated and obsoleted YaST module should be removed. We all who worked or (still have to) work with its code see that clearly and know that since a long time. Years ago I did some attempts in several ways to get it removed but there was always no response so I had to give up because I cannot endlessly waste my time with useless attempts. FYI some background information how it happened that the current YaST printer code became the official one: I developed it on my own only as a proof of concept for UI enhancements of the older YaST printer module. So at that time (in 2008) I made an "experimental YaST printer module" to get not just nice looking design ideas but something which is really implemented so that one can test how its usability is "out there in the real world". I documented all that in https://en.opensuse.org/Archive:YaST_Printer_redesign I never intended that my experimental code in my "experimental YaST printer module" should ever become official code in an official YaST module. In June 2008 I was on parental leave and when I came back in August 2008 I noticed that my "experimental YaST printer module" had become the official YaST printer module. I was rather shocked at that time because my "experimental YaST printer module" was missing major functionality, in particular regarding printing via network and cupsd config. So from August 2008 until December 2008 I had to quickly hack in the missing functionality to get it somehow ready to use for the upcoming openSUSE 11.1 release on December 18 2008, see "openSUSE 11.1 includes a new printer module" in https://lists.opensuse.org/archives/list/announce@lists.opensuse.org/message/ZNCYS2AGGEELE4NKOL75ZNNHOONAEYJF/ One can also retrace that in the YaST printer RPM changes entries at that time, see https://build.opensuse.org/projects/YaST:Head/packages/yast2-printer/files/yast2-printer.changes starting at "Mon Aug 11 14:11:31 CEST 2008" This way I became "de facto" author and maintainer of the official YaST printer module which I never intended.
Thanks for the explanations! Given that nobody wants to maintain this module (which is understandable), can you please file a delete request so that it gets removed from Tumbleweed?
Johannes explained how he tried that several times, but it was always denied. I am not sure if that was only to keep it around for business products like SLE, or in general. Of course we have to keep it for business products under paid maintenance contracts (SLE-15 SPx, SLE-12 SPx).
I can no longer find my older ones that I tried years ago because their URLs (which I still find in my old stuff) are no longer accessible as nowadays all that decayed into various continuous streams of information flow that all just pass by - into nowhere... The latest one I could find and which might be even public accessible is https://code.opensuse.org/leap/features/issue/33 which also passed by about a years ago. At SUSE we have a feaw matching internal issues. I found the above by following links in our internal issues. And - guess what (no real surprise) - those internal issues died out some years ago (i.e. no further activity there). So again I wasted now about one more hour of my working time (that our SUSE customers have to pay who have in practice null interest in the YaST printer module - otherwise we would have to deal with tons of customer issues with it) with archeology regarding the YaST printer module - sigh! Don't worry - I got now personally interested to dig out what its current state might be ;-) Regardless of that: I wish you all a nice weekend!