Printer drivers are deprecated

Hi all

jornalctl says to me:
cupsd[1058]: Printer drivers are deprecated and will stop working in a future version of CUPS. See https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/issues/103

My printer Deskjet-2050-J510-series is actually ancient.
But it still woks. And I don’t want to loss it.

what to expect for me?
And what should I do to save my old printer?

Should I add
exclude=cups*
to dnf.conf

?

2 Likes

I would do that, and make a copy of the old printerdrivers.

It depends on what printer driver you are using. Also, the printer drivers that comes with must Linux distributions are being ported to printer apps, so if you are using any gutenprint or foomatic printer drivers it should work for your printer.

The printer app are available for testing as snap packages.

ghostscript-printer-app
gutenprint-printer-app
hplip-printer-app
ps-printer-app

For me, the ghostscript-printer-app package works with my old Brother laster printer.

If you ar up to it, you should try out these apps. The more they are, tested, the more any problems will be found and fixed.

OK.
How can I test

ghostscript-printer-app
gutenprint-printer-app
hplip-printer-app
ps-printer-app

?

I just install Fedora LXQT at virtualbox, and want to simulate the situation.

To install

dnf install snapd
snap install --edge ghostscript-printer-app
snap list

Then use your browser to connect to http://localhost:8000

When you create a printer definition, you will get something that to every cups server looks like a ipp: printer using the model “everywhre”. .

THe new printer will be registered with the avahi server so using “lpinfp -v” you should see the new printer. It should also become vsible to android devices and maybe iPhones.

Most new printers supports the “ipp everywhere” protocol, so future (and current0 cups can access them directly without any special driver.

Also see GitHub - OpenPrinting/ps-printer-app: PostScript Printer Application

Should I remove current printer and all hplip firstly?

Note that at present cups still works with the vendor printer drivers. The only hiccup I have seen so far was with a package named ipp-usb that broke connections via usb to printers using the vendor drivers. Since most printers today are wireless connected that did not directly affect my setup with the HP printers.

Also note that AFAIK the only way to use the scanner in an HP MFP printer is with hplip and the HP provided plugin that accesses the scanner. Make your decisions based on your needs, and realize that warning is about the plans for what is ahead, not what is happening today.

I would keep my current printer configuration, and just install the printer app for testing purpose only. The snap printer apps are not yet released for general usage.

As you are currently using hplip, then the snap package you would need is hplip-printer-app.

With ipp-usb you can access the printer as if it were an IPP-Everywhere printer or an Air-printer. By mistake, the ipp-usb package was at some point pulled in as a dependency, but that mistake is now fixed.