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I’ve got a Debian 6 VMWare virtual machine that I mostly use via SSH (but occasionally via the GUI).

Every few minutes, the following message gets printed in my terminal:

CUPS config timestamp change detected but old config retrieved via interface!

For a while, I ignored it. Then, I uninstalled CUPS:

$ sudo apt-get remove cups
$ sudo apt-get autoremove

and restarted. I’m still getting the message.

How on earth can I stop it? I’m never, ever going to want to print from this machine.

2 Answers 2

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a) Removing cups doesn't actually remove CUPS.

b) you want to use apt-get purge not remove, probably.

You want to purge this lot, at a minimum. You can do it with a wildcard or regex.

apt-get purge '^cups'

seems to delete all packages beginning with cups, but really we want all files containing cups. Regex experts to the rescue, please. :-) See apt-get purge '^cups' output below.

(UPDATE: Per Paul's comments below, GNOME apparently insists on having some CUPs libraries installed, so I suggested he just remove frontend stuff, so in fact maybe he really does want apt-get purge '^cups').

$ dpkg -l | grep cups
ii  brhl4070cdw-cups-ppd                 1.0.0-1                              Brother HL-4070CDW CUPS driver
ii  cups                                 1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - server
ii  cups-bsd                             1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - BSD commands
ii  cups-client                          1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - client programs (SysV)
ii  cups-common                          1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - common files
ii  cups-pdf                             2.5.0-16                             PDF printer for CUPS
ii  cups-ppdc                            1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - PPD manipulation utilities
ii  cupsys                               1.3.8-1+lenny8                       Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
ii  cupsys-bsd                           1.3.8-1+lenny8                       Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
ii  cupsys-client                        1.3.8-1+lenny8                       Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
ii  cupsys-common                        1.3.8-1+lenny8                       Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
ii  libcups2                             1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - Core library
ii  libcups2-dev                         1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - Development files CUPS library
ii  libcupscgi1                          1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - CGI library
ii  libcupsdriver1                       1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - Driver library
ii  libcupsimage2                        1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - Raster image library
ii  libcupsmime1                         1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - MIME library
ii  libcupsppdc1                         1.4.4-7                              Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - PPD manipulation library
ii  libcupsys2                           1.3.8-1+lenny8                       Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
ii  libcupsys2-dev                       1.3.8-1+lenny8                       Common UNIX Printing System (transitional package)
ii  libgnomecups1.0-1                    0.2.3-3+b1                           GNOME library for CUPS interaction

# apt-get  -s purge '^cups'
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'cupsys-client' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-client' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-pdf' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-pk-helper' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-bsd' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-common' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-pt' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-dbg' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-ppdc' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsddk' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups-driver-gutenprint' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsddk-drivers' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsomatic-ppd' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsys-driver-gutenprint' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsys-bsd' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsys-common' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cupsys' for regex '^cups'
Note, selecting 'cups' instead of 'cupsddk-drivers'
Package cups-pk-helper is not installed, so not removed
Package cups-driver-gutenprint is not installed, so not removed
Package cups-dbg is not installed, so not removed
Package cupsddk is not installed, so not removed
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  cups* cups-bsd* cups-client* cups-common* cups-pdf* cups-ppdc* cupsys* cupsys-bsd* cupsys-client* cupsys-common*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 10 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Purg cupsys [1.3.8-1+lenny8]
Purg cups-pdf [2.5.0-16]
Purg cups [1.4.4-7]
Purg cupsys-bsd [1.3.8-1+lenny8]
Purg cups-bsd [1.4.4-7]
Purg cupsys-client [1.3.8-1+lenny8]
Purg cups-client [1.4.4-7]
Purg cupsys-common [1.3.8-1+lenny8]
Purg cups-ppdc [1.4.4-7]
Purg cups-common [1.4.4-7]
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  • “Removing cups doesn't actually remove CUPS.” — aha, okay, gotcha. I should also have mentioned, I do use the GUI from time to time, it’s not a purely headless server. Are any of these packages related to it? Mar 29, 2011 at 16:48
  • @Paul: Related to what? Mar 29, 2011 at 16:50
  • @Faheem: ah sorry — the GUI, Gnome. Mar 29, 2011 at 16:51
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    @ Paul: These packages are all related to CUPs. They should not affect GNOME, except insofar as GNOME has CUPS functionality. In any case, I recommend always running apt-get with the -s test option, just to be safe, and carefully check what packages it is proposing to remove. Mar 29, 2011 at 16:58
  • @Faheem: sure, will do. I think running apt-get purge on libcups2 seemed to remove Gnome and a bunch of other stuff from my system, as Gnome doesn’t seem to be there any more. No worries though, this is all in a VM, so it‘s easy to restore. (And this is why, as you say, one should actually read the long list of packages apt-get says it’s going to remove!) Mar 29, 2011 at 17:03
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Ah — turns out I think this was actually a VMWare issue after all. I disabled printers in VMWare’s virtual machine’s settings, and lo and behold, the problem (seems to have) disappeared. VMWare must have been trying to get printing to work.

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