It seems that some people think that libcupsfilter2 is only for CUPS 3.x.
It is created in preparation for the tranbsition to CUPS 3.x but it is designed
to work with both CUPS 2.x and CUPS 3.x. To use it with CUPS 2.x cups-filters
2.x and libppd 2.x is needed in addition, to provide the filter executables
needed by CUPS 2.x.
Te filter executables of cups-filters 2.x replace the filter executables of
cups-filters 1.x completely. So the transition is no problem. cups-filters 1.x
with its libcupsfilters1 can be coimpletely removed without loss of functionality.
Also, our development work at OpenPrinting concentrates on libcupsfilters 2.x
and cups-filters 2.x. cups-filters 1.x only receives bug fixes.
libcupsfilters 2.x and cups-filters 2.x receive new features, like recently its
transition from QPDF to PDFio as PDF manipulator, to eliminate C++ completely
from the library and this way ease the *.symbols file generation in Debian
packaging. Also, the repos of libcupsfilters 2.x and cups-filters 2.x have
received a complete set of CI workflows, like CUPS has them already for longer.
This improves reliability and security as bugs get quickly spotted, before the
library version gets into daily use in distros. We also do Fuzz testing via
OSS-Fuzz with libcupsfilters 2.x and cups-filters 2.x.
And, libcupsfilters 2.x is required for cpdb-backend-cups which is used by GTK
and will also be used by more desktops and applications in the future.
So I highly recommend the transition to libcupsfilters 2.x and cups-filters 2.x.
If you do not want to invent the wheel again, I did the transition already in
Ubuntu, so please check there for all the details which made it work.
Till
On 3/13/26 00:11, Ed Martin wrote:
Package: cups-filters
Version: 1.28.17-6+deb13u1
Severity: important
cups-filters is currently at 1.28.x, upsteam is at 2.x. I brought this up on
the printing mailling list in Febuary (see below) and the maintainer agreed it
should be updated to 2.x but it has not been updated, so I'm creating this bug
to track the update
This is currently important because cups needs cups-filters to function
correctly, however the package libcupsfilters2-common breaks and replaces
cups-filters 1.x (I beleive it actually should depend on cups-filters 2.x)
See:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-printing/2026/02/msg00038.html
The cups package also depends on cups-filters
This effectivtly renders libcupsfilters2 and cpdb-backend-cups uninstallable
(and cups and gnome-core can't be installed)
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 13.3
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500,
'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 6.12.73+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/24 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages cups-filters depends on:
ii bc 1.07.1-4
ii cups-filters-core-drivers 1.28.17-6+deb13u1
ii ghostscript 10.05.1~dfsg-1+deb13u1
ii libc6 2.41-12+deb13u1
ii libcups2t64 2.4.10-3+deb13u2
ii libcupsfilters1t64 1.28.17-6+deb13u1
ii libfontconfig1 2.15.0-2.3
ii libfontembed1t64 1.28.17-6+deb13u1
ii libgcc-s1 14.2.0-19
ii libqpdf30 12.2.0-1
ii libstdc++6 14.2.0-19
ii poppler-utils 25.03.0-5+deb13u2
Versions of packages cups-filters recommends:
ii colord 1.4.7-3
ii liblouisutdml-bin 2.12.0-7
ii lynx 2.9.2-1
Versions of packages cups-filters suggests:
pn antiword <none>
pn docx2txt <none>
pn foomatic-db-compressed-ppds | foomatic-db <none>
ii imagemagick 8:7.1.1.43+dfsg1-1+deb13u6
ii imagemagick-7.q16 [imagemagick] 8:7.1.1.43+dfsg1-1+deb13u6
-- no debconf information
