system-config-printer
This page is about the printer administration tool system-config-printer, which first appeared in Fedora (as part of my work at Red Hat), and later Ubuntu and other operating systems.
The purpose of the tool is to configure a CUPS server (often the local machine) using the CUPS API. The tool is written in Python, using pygtk for the graphical parts and with some Python bindings (pycups) for the CUPS API.
It is largely the same as using the CUPS web interface for configuring printers, but has the advantage of being a native application rather than a web page. It appears in the Fedora menu under System ▸ Administration ▸ Printing.
As a result of using the CUPS API the tool is able to configure remote CUPS instances and is not limited to configuring CUPS on the local machine. The CUPS library providing the API uses HTTP and IPP to communicate with the CUPS server.
I work on this application as part of my job at Red Hat.
Download
Download tarball releases from:
http://cyberelk.net/tim/data/system-config-printer/
You will also require pycups from:
http://cyberelk.net/tim/software/pycups/
Source Code
The git repository is available at fedorahosted.org:
git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/system-config-printer.git
or browse using gitweb.
New releases are announced at freshmeat.
Translations
Language translations should be submitted through Fedora Transifex.
Mailing list
There is a public mailing list for discussion of the development of this project.
Reporting bugs
If you have found a bug in system-config-printer, please report it. If system-config-printer came with your operating system, report the bug to the operating system vendor:
- Packagers, or people who have installed system-config-printer from source themselves, should report the bug in the fedorahosted trac instance for system-config-printer. This is the “upstream” bug tracker.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora users should use Red Hat Bugzilla
- Ubuntu users should use launchpad
- Mandriva users should use Mandriva Bugzilla
Hi J,
This is vaasu here.. i dont have any idea about Printer… Eg : The configuration or anything.. But i know dat before printer should be installed driver should be installed first. Could you help me out with mentioning the steps involved in the configuration?
Thank you,
J.
In fact, simply connecting the printer to the computer is usually all that is needed when using Fedora, and the same is true for many other Linux distributions.
If you have a network printer, just start the printing configuration tool and follow the instructions.
Sorry I can’t be more specific — you haven’t said which operating system you are using in particular (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc), and they are a bit different.
I have a Linux OS and a Lexmark x6675 and unable to print although it shows the local host is connected.
What do I need to do to fix this issue. Please email me.
Thank You ,
Sarah Ward
I think you might be out of luck I’m afraid — according to the list of Lexmark printers at OpenPrinting.org that model is not known to be supported, and all the similar model numbers are listed in the section for printers that have no support at all.
[...] Waugh, Entwickler des Drucker-Konfigurations-Programms system-config-printer, hat in seinem Blog auf Änderungen hingewiesen, auf die sich die Linux-Welt mit dem derzeit [...]
[...] verranno però presi in carico da Openprinting. Tim Waugh, lo sviluppatore dell’interfaccia system-config-printer, ha già annunciato queste modifiche al team di Fedora in mailing list, e allo stesso tempo ha [...]
I cannot scan documents.
Printing is OK.
Notebook: HP Pavilion dv2660
OS: LINUX UBUNTU 11.10
Printer: HP Photosmart 2610 All-in-One
Printer configured as network printer, connected to a switch.
Thanks.
Alfredo
I cant get my printer to scan with this system
look at anothers post that u helped on an figured it out with connecting to the network.. thanks
Hello Tim,
As a downstream translator for Ubuntu, I find the translatable menu item “Printing” in the source code, a bit confusing. It tends to be translated into things like “Busy with printing” etc.
I myself made that mistake once, too… One of those highly visible translation errors that haunt a poor translator for months, creating outcry in the user community.
Would you perhaps consider changing the menu item “Printing” into something like “Print Settings”, “Print Manager”, “Printing Management”, or something roughly along those lines?
Regards, Pjotr.
Some extra information for you:
The translatable source code strings I’m referring to, are string 376 and 622. I use the Ubuntu .pot file as a reference (maybe the Fedora .pot file uses a different string numbering, but I don’t suppose so).
When you would adapt those, you’d probably also want to adapt string 655. For two reasons: you’d want to have the new name in it, and also you may want to change the menu path it refers to. Because that’s a Gnome 2 path, and therefore largely outdated.
Regards, Pjotr.