According to Novell, an iPrint .deb package can be made using alien.
The generated package doesn't build in Precise however.
And whatever is built is dangerous to your system.
But bear with me...
The alien-generated package just needs a few changes:
Don't install the 32-bit libraries/executables or the links to them. The 64-bit will do. Don't install symlinks to these either. Adjust the lib and lib64 paths. (See MultiarchSpec.)
Don't edit cupsd.conf from the postinst.
The user must be allowed to add/remove printers in CUPS without using a password.
How this is configured is a matter for the user/admin.
(But see giving the user CUPS admin access.)
Don't bother starting/stopping the listener during install. It needs access to the X screen, so it has to be started when the windows manager starts.
Install a couple of packages before building, so shlibdeps can find the libraries the iPrint client needs.
Instead of installing a bunch of superfluous symlinks to the browser plugins and forgetting the right two, install just the right two.
Depend on firefox/iceweasel, libglitz and a few others. Build-depend on fakeroot, quilt etc.
Leave the ld_library_path alone.
Having /opt/novell/lib64 in that path presents a danger.
If Novell decides to put some Novell version there of a library that any package on the system links to, that package may break or become vulnerable.
When all this is done, you get a package that builds and works. I cannot offer it here: it would contain software for which Novell owns the copyright. But I can offer the bits and pieces that allow you to recreate the package. To do so...
I got from my iprint server an RPM novell-iprint-xclient.x86_64.rpm.
Get the same, and unpack it using alien:
user@pc:~/$ mkdir iprint
user@pc:~/$ cd iprint
user@pc:~/iprint$ alien -d --generate --scripts --keep-version --fixperms novell-iprint-xclient.x86_64.rpm
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debianuser@pc:~/iprint$ mv novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian ./debian-aside
Fetch my tarball, and unpack it:
user@pc:~/iprint$ wget -q http://jurjenbokma.com/ApprenticesNotes/download/novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114-deb.tgz
user@pc:~/iprint$ tar zxvf novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114-deb.tgz
pbuilder-hooks/A30-add-packages
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/dirs
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/patches/
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/patches/rc-status-in-lsb.diff
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/patches/series
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/postinst
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/compat
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/changelog
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/rules
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/copyright
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/control
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114/debian/conffiles
novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114Change directory into the package dir, substitute your own gpg key, and build using pbuilder:
user@pc:~/iprint$ cd novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114
user@pc:~/iprint/novell-iprint-xclient-sl-6.503.20111114$ DIST=precise pdebuild --debsign-k AAA01010 --debbuildopts '-sa'
This should get you a working package.
If you don't have pbuilder setup and don't want to bother, you can also rm -rf pbuilder-hooks, and instead of using shlibdeps add the dependencies by hand in debian/control.
These are the dependencies shlibdeps generates for me on Debian Wheezy:
libc6 (>= 2.3.4), libcups2 (>= 1.4.0), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libnspr4 (>= 2:4.9-2~) | libnspr4-0d (>= 1.8.0.10), libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1), libxml2 (>= 2.6.27), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
These are the ones for Ubuntu Precise:
libc6 (>= 2.3.4), libcups2 (>= 1.4.0), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libnspr4 (>= 1.8.0.10), libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1), libxml2 (>= 2.6.27), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
with these, you should be able to build with dpkg-buildpackage.