installing the package "cups-backends" on SuSE 10.0 installed a file  
called 
  
/usr/lib/cups/backends/pipe  
 
which was otherwise missing.  BUT, this file was a comment about this function 
and NOT a working executable providing the function as it is on SuSE 9.3. 
 
NOTE:  cups-backends should really be installed if cups is installed at all, 
that is another problem, that caused hours of debugging alone, since CUPS 
has no good error reporting.  (yast2 should also require cups-backends 
installed before allowing piped printing.) 
  
Workaround:  
  
SuSE 9.3, at the same file location, actually has the executable.  
Copy it over to 10.0 and it runs.  
  
Note that "pipe" style printing on SuSE 10.0 is broken because of this. 
 
(Of course piped print is only used to run custom filters that fix a host of 
other bugs, but that is not my point here.  Without pipe printing there is no 
work around for supporting many features of high end printers using SuSE.)