Using current 32 bit I'm unable to print anything outside of KDE. If I print something from Konqueror or Koffice for instance, my printer shows up in the dialog and everything prints fine. However if I use openoffice or abiword, etc then my only option is to "print to file" It is a samba shared printer that is attached to a 13.1 server, but I don't know that that makes a difference.

I hate to bump my own thread, but I still just don't have a clue what's causing this. Where do programs like firefox and openoffice get the system's printer from?

OK I'm an idiot. For anyone else that might put on their blinders as well....... I forgot to update /etc/cups/client.conf (to be quite honest I don't ever remember editing it to begin with) with the address of the cups server after I had to change addressing schemes. For whatever reason KDE applications weren't dependent on the contents of that file so they showed the printer and worked just fine. EVERYTHING else apparently does depend on that file and as soon as it was updated and cups was restarted everything works properly.

My apologies for bumping this thread, but I was on the verge of wiping a very custom installation over this. I just don't really print anything so I didn't notice the problem when it occurred. On the bright side I learned a lot about many different things while chasing my tail.