Bug#532097: RFA: cups -- Common UNIX Printing System
On Sat 06 Jun 2009 at 14:05:10 +0200, Martin Pitt wrote: > Package: wnpp > Severity: normal > > Hello all, > > cups is in severe need for a dedicated Debian maintainer. I became an > uploader some years ago for more efficient integration of > improvements/fixes done in Ubuntu, but now I have been the only > uploader for 1.5 years. I cleaned up the patch mess, brought the > package and test suite into a well working state, follow up on RC > bugs, and prepare most security updates; Till Kamppeter is developing > the PDF filters. > > However, that's not enough. Neither Till nor I have a Debian unstable > as primary workstation where we could test printing in a real Debian > system, and neither of us has time to look at the Debian bug reports. > > Right now, cups has hundreds of bug reports, many of them years old; > many of them were probably fixed long ago, many aren't problems in > cups but some driver (gutenprint, foomatic, ghostscript). > > To get the Debian cups bugs into some useful state again, someone who > knows the Linux printing system very well needs to sit down and write > a comprehensive "how to debug printing problems" document: in > particular, how to identify in which package the problem is, which > debug information to collect, and common workarounds/tests which help > the reporter's immediate problem and are useful for diagnosis. > > Then we can declare a "bug bancrupcy" and mass-close all bugs which > were filed before the Lenny release, with an honest apology and the > request to re-file bugs again with following the debugging document. > For all newer bugs we can just followup with the debugging document. > > On the plus side, cups' upstream Mike Sweet is very responsive. It > takes some dispassionateness to argue with him about patches and > rejected bug reports, but he responds very fast. So the genuine > problems remaining in the Debian BTS should be spoonfed to upstream, > after making sure that it isn't a Debian specific or driver problem. > > I'm happy to continue basic package maintenance as pointed out above, > do sponsoring, and mentor interested newcomers. You don't need to be a > DD, but you should have a printer or two, use Debian unstable > regularly, and willing to learn about the printing architecture (cups > spooler, drivers, etc.). > > Many thanks in advance, [...] This bug report should be closed. For a number of years Didier 'OdyX' Raboud has been the dedicated Debian maintainer of cups and other packages and kept them in excellent shape with timely package uploads and attention to detail. The printing team's activities have also run smoothly. The "hundreds of bug reports" have been reduced to a handful and the wiki and cups documentation have been transformed. Regards, Brian.
Bug#532097: RFA: cups -- Common UNIX Printing System
Le samedi 06 juin 2009, Martin Pitt a écrit : Hello all, Hello Martin. cups is in severe need for a dedicated Debian maintainer. I became an uploader some years ago for more efficient integration of improvements/fixes done in Ubuntu, but now I have been the only uploader for 1.5 years. I cleaned up the patch mess, brought the package and test suite into a well working state, follow up on RC bugs, and prepare most security updates; Till Kamppeter is developing the PDF filters. Thank you for your work, Martin, this is a very important piece of software for a desktop system (or a print server, of course). And to me, CUPS is a really good system that many years of advance compared to the poorly-designed legacy system Microsoft provides as a competitor. However, that's not enough. Neither Till nor I have a Debian unstable as primary workstation where we could test printing in a real Debian system, and neither of us has time to look at the Debian bug reports. I do have a Debian unstable desktop computer and I could try and do some bug triaging. Right now, cups has hundreds of bug reports, many of them years old; many of them were probably fixed long ago, many aren't problems in cups but some driver (gutenprint, foomatic, ghostscript). To get the Debian cups bugs into some useful state again, someone who knows the Linux printing system very well needs to sit down and write a comprehensive how to debug printing problems document: in particular, how to identify in which package the problem is, which debug information to collect, and common workarounds/tests which help the reporter's immediate problem and are useful for diagnosis. I think I have a good overview of CUPS, from a user point of view: filters, backends, configuration… However, though I may be able to tell with package is concerned by a given problem, it would be difficult for me to give a general recipe to do it. As I said, I could try and do some bug triaging, and that may help me to draw such a recipe and document it. I'm happy to continue basic package maintenance as pointed out above, do sponsoring, and mentor interested newcomers. You don't need to be a DD, but you should have a printer or two, use Debian unstable regularly, and willing to learn about the printing architecture (cups spooler, drivers, etc.). I do. Though I really do not want to print hundreds of test pages, and would rather print to files, using… a custom backend (unless a file backend already exists, but I never saw one, but maybe such a – very simple, but very useful for debugging – backend may be worth packaging). :-) -- Tanguy Ortolo signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#532097: RFA: cups -- Common UNIX Printing System
Hello Tanguy, Tanguy Ortolo [2010-06-14 12:47 +0200]: I do. Though I really do not want to print hundreds of test pages, and would rather print to files, using… a custom backend (unless a file backend already exists, but I never saw one, but maybe such a – very simple, but very useful for debugging – backend may be worth packaging). That does exist. Set FileDevice Yes in cupsd.conf (see man cupsd.conf), and as a device name use something like file:///tmp/cups.out; I haven't tried that for a while, but back then it worked fine. For postscript output you can of course use the result right away. For raster data there's a nice viewer out there [1], but it's not packaged. But I guess for most problems (doesn't print, etc.) you just need to look whether it produces some output in the first place, rather than just crashing. Asking verbose cups error_log files from reporters is very helpful with that (cupsctl --debug-logging), as it will show you the precise command lines of all filters. These can then be called manually and checked their individual results. Thanks for your interest! Martin [1] http://www.easysw.com/~mike/rasterview/index.html -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#532097: RFA: cups -- Common UNIX Printing System
Package: wnpp Severity: normal Hello all, cups is in severe need for a dedicated Debian maintainer. I became an uploader some years ago for more efficient integration of improvements/fixes done in Ubuntu, but now I have been the only uploader for 1.5 years. I cleaned up the patch mess, brought the package and test suite into a well working state, follow up on RC bugs, and prepare most security updates; Till Kamppeter is developing the PDF filters. However, that's not enough. Neither Till nor I have a Debian unstable as primary workstation where we could test printing in a real Debian system, and neither of us has time to look at the Debian bug reports. Right now, cups has hundreds of bug reports, many of them years old; many of them were probably fixed long ago, many aren't problems in cups but some driver (gutenprint, foomatic, ghostscript). To get the Debian cups bugs into some useful state again, someone who knows the Linux printing system very well needs to sit down and write a comprehensive how to debug printing problems document: in particular, how to identify in which package the problem is, which debug information to collect, and common workarounds/tests which help the reporter's immediate problem and are useful for diagnosis. Then we can declare a bug bancrupcy and mass-close all bugs which were filed before the Lenny release, with an honest apology and the request to re-file bugs again with following the debugging document. For all newer bugs we can just followup with the debugging document. On the plus side, cups' upstream Mike Sweet is very responsive. It takes some dispassionateness to argue with him about patches and rejected bug reports, but he responds very fast. So the genuine problems remaining in the Debian BTS should be spoonfed to upstream, after making sure that it isn't a Debian specific or driver problem. I'm happy to continue basic package maintenance as pointed out above, do sponsoring, and mentor interested newcomers. You don't need to be a DD, but you should have a printer or two, use Debian unstable regularly, and willing to learn about the printing architecture (cups spooler, drivers, etc.). Many thanks in advance, Martin Pitt The package description is: The Common UNIX Printing System (or CUPS(tm)) is a printing system and general replacement for lpd and the like. It supports the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), and has its own filtering driver model for handling various document types. . This package provides the CUPS scheduler/daemon and related files. . The terms Common UNIX Printing System and CUPS are trademarks of Easy Software Products (www.easysw.com), and refer to the original source packages from which these packages are made. -- Martin Pitt| http://www.piware.de Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) signature.asc Description: Digital signature
