Public bug reported: According to "man lpoptions":
> When run by the root user, lpoptions gets and sets default options and > instances for all users in the /etc/cups/lpoptions file. Otherwise, > the per-user defaults are managed in the ~/.cups/lpoptions file. According to my experimentation, this is incorrect. When lpoptions is run as root, the file "/root/.cups/lpoptions" is updated (aka the personal default printer of root), not "/etc/cups/lpoptions" (aka the system-wide default printer). I'm unsure whether this is a documentation bug or wrong behavior. I assume the later, because there seems to be no other option to set the system-wide default printer. root@mi553-022:~# lsb_release -rd Description: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS Release: 20.04 root@mi553-022:~# apt-cache policy cups cups: Installed: 2.3.1-9ubuntu1.1 Candidate: 2.3.1-9ubuntu1.1 Version table: *** 2.3.1-9ubuntu1.1 500 500 http://ftp.luis.uni-hannover.de/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages 500 http://ftp.luis.uni-hannover.de/ubuntu focal-security/main amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 2.3.1-9ubuntu1 500 500 http://ftp.luis.uni-hannover.de/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages 2.2.7-1ubuntu2.8 500 500 http://ftp.luis.uni-hannover.de/ubuntu bionic-security/main amd64 Packages ** Affects: cups (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1954902 Title: lpoptions cannot change system-wide default printer To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/1954902/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs