cups-pdf 3.0.1-5

[ramack]

My AMD64 Stable has cups-pdf 2.6.1-22 and I would like to install 3.0.1-5, however, it appears it isn't in backports yet. Is there another option for installing cups-pdf 3.0.1-5?

stretch (stable) (graphics): printer driver for PDF writing via CUPS 2.6.1-22: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x

buster (testing) (graphics): printer driver for PDF writing via CUPS 3.0.1-5: amd64 arm64 armel armhf i386 mips mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x

Thanks

[stevepusser]

Perhaps you or I could backport it ourselves, but do you have a real need for the newer release?

[ramack]

Steve, thanks for responding.

Selectable text for copy/paste is to be fixed in cups-pdf 3.0.1-5. At least that's how I understand the last post in this bug-report log.

I wouldn't have a clue as to how to get it into backports, but I would be up to learning how if you have the patience, ha.

[arzgi]

I wouldn't have a clue as to how to get it into backports, but I would be up to learning how if you have the patience, ha.

You can use google?

[debiman]

Selectable text for copy/paste is to be fixed in cups-pdf 3.0.1-5. At least that's how I understand the last post in this bug-report log.

i read that it is fixed in 3.0.1-3, that was in March 2017.

apparently that was too late to get into debian 9.

I wouldn't have a clue as to how to get it into backports, but I would be up to learning how if you have the patience, ha.

i don't think our patience is required, but yours.

[Dai_trying]

A good place to start might be https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation

[ramack]

Right after my last post being curious how to create a backport as Steve suggested, I did google creating backports and found two relevant hits. There were a lot of hits that suggested adding a sid src repo into sources.list and compiling from source, bad idea mixing unstable with stable or testing.

For local backport creation, https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation

And the formal Debian backport creation, https://wiki.debian.org/BuildingFormalBackports

I started following the steps in the first URL, but haven't completed it yet, I think I'm probably running into syntax or path errors. It looks like it's trying to create cups-pdf for my current version, 2.6.1-22 and not 3.0.1-5, so I'm going through the steps again and looking at the man pages to see what I'm doing wrong.

I had found an alternative that hadn't previously worked, using the Print to File, PDF instead of ps. I had been printing to .ps, then using ps2pdf to convert to .pdf. This produced a PDF that had selectable text that could be copied and pasted into another document without the garbled text. ps2pdf stopped working a few months ago and I started using a FireFox extension, Print Friendly & PDF. The extension works fine, I'm just trying to get cups-pdf working like it had been.

[ramack]

Reading debian/control, the last line confirms what I tried yesterday and confirmed that Print To File, PDF does now work. Previously, Print To File produced the same results as printing to cups-pdf.

"Desktop users might find it simpler to use the Print To File feature provided by GTK+ and QT or the LibreOffice's Export to PDF feature."

[stevepusser]

Users can also make requests for an official backport on the backports mailing list: https://lists.debian.org/debian-backports/ The first post should argue the case why a backport is necessary.

[ramack]

Finally....
I have the selectable text and ungarbled paste functionality back. Official backporting didn't look like it was going to option based on the initial responses of the request.

Even so, when a bug exists in stable, the right thing to do is to
fix the package, not upload a backport.

Rule of thumb: *-backports is for new features, not for bug fixes. Bug
fixes are for *-proposed-updates (and the "regular" suite after a
suitable migration period).

and

While making uploads onto stretch-backports is possible, you probably should
already know that uploading onto -backports is not the correct way of fixing
bugs in Debian Stable, since the major part of stable users will never be able
to benefit from packages in stable-backports repository.

Have you talked with the current maintainer of cups-pdf already? If not,
please consult with them and see if we could push a upload into stable main
repository via proposed-updates mechanism. If the fix is trivial, a minimal
patch on top of current stable cups-pdf source would be highly appreciated
instead of preparing a fresh new upstream version (which is also likely to be
rejected by the Release Team). If you have already talked with the printing
team, their suggestion on such backport upload would be valuable too.

I contacted the maintainer who sent me a two line CLI patch to use, however the patch didn't work.

Code: Select all

lpadmin -x PDF

lpadmin -p PDF -v cups-pdf:/ -E -o pdftops-renderer-default=pdftocairo
-m lsb/usr/cups-pdf/CUPS-PDF.ppd

Following the steps here, https://wiki.debian.org/SimpleBackportCreation
After several attempts I ended up successfully building a local .deb and installing it which did work. I hadn't compiled from source before, so I didn't really know what I was doing, most of my problems were file locations, paths and where to unzip the contents of the two tar balls. I don't think it compiled until after I extracted the contents on the same level of my build directory. I had been keeping them in separate directories, the directories made when extracted. But...it's done and it works.

[debiman]

i hope you filed a bug, or maybe first talked to the debian maintainer (not upstream developer!) of cups-pdf.
the response suggests that someone else thought this important AND simple enough to fix.

[ramack]

The response from the maintainer

> I would really like to know what fix is needed to justify pushing a
> major code update onto stable-updates.

I have thought about filing a bug report. Especially since the "fix" didn't fix it. I have heard crickets since I responded back to the maintainer since I told him the fix hasn't worked.