@ghostcube and @mase:

I think I figured out both issues at once. The cups script DOES have a linking command in it, but it never runs. Reason being, the libpam0g library has an incorrect header in its postinst script. And since libpam0g doesn't install, neither does the cups script.

If you look at the postinst script to libpam0g, it calls out for #!/bin/bash which doesn't exist on a default N900. That call has to be changed to /bin/sh (which works fine).

This is why it was working for some people and not others. Some people have installed a working version of bash on their system, so it silently worked for them. Those without it, apt-get installed them, but failed on the config (which is silent in app manager).

The good news is, you can fix it pretty easily. Attached is a re-pack of the libpam0g library with the proper fix (bash ->sh). Use dpkg to install it as shown below and it should overwrite the existing one, then configure properly. The second command gets dpkg to configure anything else that needs configuring still (like cups).