Package: cups Version: 1.3.11-1+b1 Severity: wishlist
Investigating for bug #524201, I found that /usr/lib/cups/filter/cpdftocps, used for application/vnd.cups-pdf -> application/vnd.cups-postscript (cost 22) is not a single filter, but the aggregation of two: /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops and /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops. Indeed, at the end of it: cat "$infile" | \ /usr/lib/cups/filter/pdftops "$@" | \ /usr/lib/cups/filter/pstops "$1" "$2" "$3" "$copies" "$collate $MASKED_OPTS" This has two drawbacks: 1. declaring a cost of 22 is a lie, and makes CUPS use this filter preferently, even if it costs in reality twice that; 2. this filter uses a temporary file, that could have been avoided by other cleaner filters. For instance, to transform an application/postscript into application/vnd.cups-postscript, this is what CUPS does: - application/postscript application/pdf pstopdf 22 - application/pdf application/vnd.cups-pdf pdftopdf 22 - application/vnd.cups-pdf application/vnd.cups-postscript cpdftocps “22” which, in reality, does: - application/vnd.cups-pdf application/postscript (!) pdftops 22 - application/postscript application/vnd.cups-postscript pstops 66 Yes, this looks crazy, transforming regular PostScript into regular PDF, then filtered PDF, then again regular PostScript, and finally filtered PostScript, just to be able to claim we are using PDF, which is a modern format. In addition, as stated in bug #524201, that workflow just does not work, and makes cupsd kill itself. And, finally, this cpdftocps does not respect the CUPS filter(7) convention, as it is unable to handle files that are passed as command line arguments instead of stdin (I shall make another report for that). For comparison, here is what CUPS used to do for the same result before pushing PDF at any cost: - application/postscript application/vnd.cups-postscript pstops 66 So, te restablish a sane filtering workflow, I suggest either: 1. to remove this strange cpdftocps filter: aggregating filters is CUPS scheduler's job, and should not be done inside filters themselves; 2. to keep it if it is really necessary to claim there is a “full PDF” workflow, but to declare its actual cost, 88 (or 122, as pstops is now marked as costing 100); 3. to write a real application/vnd.cups-pdf -> application/vnd.cups-postscript filter. :-) Regards, -- Tanguy Ortolo -- System Information: Debian Release: squeeze/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-1-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Versions of packages cups depends on: ii adduser 3.110 add and remove users and groups ii bc 1.06.94-3.1 The GNU bc arbitrary precision cal ii cups-client 1.3.11-1+b1 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - ii cups-common 1.3.11-1 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.27 Debian configuration management sy ii ghostscript 8.70~dfsg-2 The GPL Ghostscript PostScript/PDF ii libavahi-compat-libdns 0.6.25-1 Avahi Apple Bonjour compatibility ii libc6 2.9-25 GNU C Library: Shared libraries ii libcups2 1.3.11-1+b1 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - ii libcupsimage2 1.3.11-1+b1 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - ii libdbus-1-3 1.2.16-2 simple interprocess messaging syst ii libgcc1 1:4.4.1-1 GCC support library ii libgnutls26 2.8.3-1 the GNU TLS library - runtime libr ii libgssapi-krb5-2 1.7dfsg~beta3-1 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries - k ii libijs-0.35 0.35-7 IJS raster image transport protoco ii libkrb5-3 1.7dfsg~beta3-1 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries ii libldap-2.4-2 2.4.17-1 OpenLDAP libraries ii libpam0g 1.0.1-10 Pluggable Authentication Modules l ii libpaper1 1.1.23+nmu1 library for handling paper charact ii libpoppler4 0.10.6-1 PDF rendering library ii libslp1 1.2.1-7.6 OpenSLP libraries ii libstdc++6 4.4.1-1 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3 ii lsb-base 3.2-23 Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip ii perl-modules 5.10.0-25 Core Perl modules ii poppler-utils [xpdf-ut 0.10.6-1 PDF utilitites (based on libpopple ii procps 1:3.2.8-1 /proc file system utilities ii ssl-cert 1.0.23 simple debconf wrapper for OpenSSL ii ttf-freefont 20080323-3 Freefont Serif, Sans and Mono True ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-15 compression library - runtime Versions of packages cups recommends: ii avahi-utils 0.6.25-1 Avahi browsing, publishing and dis ii cups-driver-gutenprint 5.2.4-1 printer drivers for CUPS ii foomatic-filters 4.0-20090509-1 OpenPrinting printer support - fil ii ghostscript-cups 8.70~dfsg-2 The GPL Ghostscript PostScript/PDF ii smbclient 2:3.3.4-1 command-line SMB/CIFS clients for Versions of packages cups suggests: ii cups-bsd 1.3.11-1+b1 Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - pn cups-pdf <none> (no description available) ii foomatic-db 20090616-1 OpenPrinting printer support - dat ii foomatic-db-engine 4.0-20090509-1 OpenPrinting printer support - pro pn hplip <none> (no description available) pn xpdf-korean | xpdf-japane <none> (no description available) -- debconf information: cupsys/raw-print: true cupsys/backend: ipp, lpd, parallel, socket, usb -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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