diff --git a/nixos/modules/hardware/printers.nix b/nixos/modules/hardware/printers.nix
index 1d18a96fb1cd..f24ca2c358f4 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/hardware/printers.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/hardware/printers.nix
@@ -78,11 +78,6 @@ in
                 config.hardware.printers.ensurePrinters. Specifying a symblic
                 name here that does not match any of those printers is
                 considered a hard error.
-
-                ::: {.warning}
-                Print jobs to this class will quietly fail if there are no
-                printers in this class. CUPS reports them as pending
-                :::
               '';
             };
             classes = mkOption {
@@ -267,7 +262,14 @@ in
           '';
         }
       )
-    ];
+    ]
+    ++ map (class: {
+      assertion = cfg.ensureClasses.${class}.printers != [ ] || cfg.ensureClasses.${class}.classes != [ ];
+      message = ''
+        At least one of the lists `config.hardware.printers.ensureClasses.${class}.printers`
+        and `config.hardware.printers.ensureClasses.${class}.classes` has to be non-empty.
+      '';
+    }) (builtins.attrNames cfg.ensureClasses);
 
     systemd.services.cups = {
       postStart =
@@ -333,17 +335,6 @@ in
             d = cfg.ensureDefaultPrinter;
           })}
 
-          #### CLASS DEFINITIONS ####
-          lpadmin -p _tmp -v file:/dev/null
-          ${lib.concatMapStringsSep "\n" (
-            className:
-            lpadmin {
-              p = "_tmp";
-              c = className;
-            }
-          ) classNames}
-          lpadmin -x _tmp
-
           #### ADDING PRINTERS TO CLASSES ####
           ${lib.concatMapStringsSep "\n" (
             className: