Mageia forum

I tried to install HP Photosmart 5280 printer in my fresh installation of Mageia 3 KDE.
It was automatically recognized as 5200 series.
Then, OS suggested to install drivers and CUPS. This is understandable. However, it also suggested to install a good chink of GNOME* packages. Not sure why there's a dependency.

This is just a part of the dependency hell that is generated by the fact that static libraries simply are not used anymore in packaging. Everything down to the simplest function is now dependent on something else which is dependent on something else and before you know it you have the whole thing on board. But that is the reality at this point in the game and it is the reality for most distributions I suspect. Almost everything written for Linux is built on either the qt toolkit or the gtk toolkit and if it is built on the gtk toolkit, that means Gnome (gtk) libraries. And that may well include CUPS. This really does not surprise me (although it DOES aggravate me at times) and I strongly suspect you would find the same issue with other distros. What is really frustrating is when dependencies bring in things that you REALLY do not want. When, for example, the only way you can get a feature that is indispensable and rock solid is to also pack along a feature that is useless and buggy, and that happens sometimes. In those cases I simply remove the offending software with `rpm -e --nodeps XXX`. But that breaks the rpm database and you can't do that with required libraries. So there are no easy solutions. I do wish that a lot of essential software like cups could be available as static standalone packages without having to drag along a bunch of dependencies. But we have to understand that the packagers are drowning in "todo's" as it is and hardly have time for the run of the mill stuff let alone such niceties as static packaging options.

Some more information.
I installed CUPS separately. It does not have too much dependencies. No blame here.
Then, I went to MCC - Hardware - Set up printers. It automatically пave a list of 3 packages to install:

• system-config-printer
• task-printing-server
• task-printing-hp

Trying to install each of these components individually at Install & Remove Software, I figured out that this is system-config-printer who has GNOME dependencies.

Any way to avoid this?

Well, you can use cups without system-config-printer, if that is what you want to know.
As s-c-p is a GTK program, it will pull quite some gnome libraries, that cannot be avoided.

I believe Mageia automatically determines s-c-p as a prerequisite to printer installation.
How can I avoid this?

I think there might be a couple of ways to do this. Since it is the Mageia printer installation tool that is insisting on installing all of this software that you neither need or want, now that you have CUPS installed, you should be able to go directly to CUPS and install the printer via CUPS.

Start Menu -> Tools -> System Tools -> Manage Printing

OR since I *believe* you have hplip installed, you could right clip on the HP icon in the tray and bring up HP Device Manager and install your printer from there.

But there really should be some way in the MCC dialog to bypass the package install process. It is the way it is because it is designed to accomodate novice users who, if it wasn't the way it is, would be right here on this very forum complaining that they installed their printer and it doesn't work or the install process failed and they can't figure out what went wrong. It is broadly designed to cover all possible situations. But not always good for techies like us.

- George

Thanks, George!
I managed to install printer from CUPS.
I installed HPLIP too btw.

In that case, you would just need to install task-printing and use cups directly, or additionally hplip if you have an HP printer. Why would you want to use system-config-printer or printerdrake, if you can use cups directly?

doktor5000 wrote:In that case, you would just need to install task-printing and use cups directly, or additionally hplip if you have an HP printer. Why would you want to use system-config-printer or printerdrake, if you can use cups directly?

It was suggested by Mageia automatically when I connected the printer and started the auto-configuration in MCC.

Its a syndrome that I suspect gives developers a lot of headaches. Users want things to be simple and uncomplicated. But simple usually results in complicated code behind the scenes. Its a conundrum that defies solution. The very quest for simplicity increases complexity. Simple="Do everything with one tool - MCC" Result="Need to install more (perhaps unwanted) software to make that happen". Perhaps the answer would be a simple (oh there's that word again!) option in the printer install dialog to enable the user to opt out to CUPS if they prefer not to install the s-c-p packages. But then that would probably just bring more confusion. There is no solution.

darkduck wrote:It was suggested by Mageia automatically when I connected the printer and started the auto-configuration in MCC.

You could not cancel that?

I could not deselect only part of that. It's either all-or-nothing.
The workaround, which I found through this post, was to use CUPS installer instead of MCC's one.