From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.2-2 i686) Description of problem: If /var/spool/lpd is missing, printconf-backend will scream and die when you ask it to rebuild the /etc/printcap files. The symptom could be fixed by making printconf-backend smarter, but /var/spool/lpd needs to exist, always, when the local system uses LPRng. Therefore, I think it's LPRng's responsibility to make sure that directory exists. How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: # rm -rf /var/spool/lpd Then run printconf-gui from a terminal window and hit the Apply button. You'll see a Python backtrace in the terminal. This leads you to the code where it's trying to walk the tree underneath /var/spool/lpd looking for "volatile" directories. Additional info: I came across this problem while trying to fix a printing problem. The machine had been upgraded from RH6.2 to 7.1 -- printing worked before the upgrade, and didn't afterward. I decided to remove everything I could find related to printing: /var/spool/lpd/*, /etc/printcap*, the LPRng and printconf RPMs, etc. I then reinstalled the RPMs, assuming they'd bring the print sybsystem back to a working state, so I could re-create my printer. Strictly speaking, I caused this problem, but a core directory like /var/spool/lpd should have an RPM package that owns it and is responsible for re-creating it when someone blows it away. (For what it's worth, the _real_ problem turned out to be a conflict with the old LPT1 port, 0x3BC -- I think the vesafb feature interferes with it. I changed the port in the BIOS to 0x378 and it began working.)
this is part of the filesystem rpm. It is ALWAYS there. Having rpms add bits they need that are part of this base leads to madness.