weird cups problem

[Willy K. Hamra]

after digging my head for hours of why is hp-toolbox failing to install
my printer, which was already installed last week, and after another
half an hour of wondering why i can't even access CUPS web interface,
thiking it might be an iptables issue, since i played with it last week,
and all the work trying to resolve my print issues, i realized the
problem was simple, CUPS wasn't even running.
very simple:

willy at willy:/etc/cups$ sudo /etc/init.d/cups status
Status of Common Unix Printing System: cupsd is not running.
willy at willy:/etc/cups$ sudo /etc/init.d/cups start
 * Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd
                                 cupsd: Child exited on signal 15!

                          [ OK ]
willy at willy:/etc/cups$

so what on earth that means? i have no idea. since i'm using karmic, and
downloading isn't something i like too much, i was postponing the update
download till RC, but now i remembered something, maybe CUPS is broken
due to some package mismatch? newer and older versions of CUPS-related
packages exist on my system. so i downloaded 500 MB of packages, still,
same problem.
until i thought of looking at /etc/cups/cupsd.conf , and what a result i
saw.
inside that file i have the output of the command "mount" followed by a
long long line of "@@@@@@@@@@@@"
WTF?
how did the output of my mount end up in cupsd.conf?? i most certianly
did not cause this by anymistake since i never touched the file myself,
it's always programs working on it. no one knows my sudo password, and
it's not like anyone touches this computer anyways. some bad aptitude
run? a bad fsck? how can that happen?
anyways, i deleted the file, copied cupsd.conf.default to its place, and
voila, everything is working perfectly again.
sigh
-- 
Willy K. Hamra
Manager of Hamra Information Systems
Co. Manager of Zeina Computer & Billy Net
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