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.

Please note that I no longer maintain system-config-printer. Please visit its new home at GitHub.

Download

Download older 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 GitHub.

Translations

Language translations should be submitted through Zanata.

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 at GitHub. 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

Comments

363 responses to “system-config-printer”

Peter White

March 14, 2009

I bought an Aspire One with Linpus Lite and wanted to print to my old HP Jet Direct printer. Its easy from Windoze but not so from Linpus.

The only print options I was offered was Internet Printing and SAMBA.

Should I be looking to download some different printing software is there a trick I’m missing.

Peter

Reply
tim

March 15, 2009

Sorry, not familiar with Linpus but it looks like that includes quite an old version of system-config-printer (0.7.x), one that I no longer maintain.

If it’s a USB printer though it should just be a case of selecting that printer from the list.

Reply
Francisco Espinoza

March 15, 2009

Hi, i tried to install an Epson Stylus RX595 shared on Windows Xp, but the system-config-printer 1.0.0 dont’t show me the option printer via samba, show the way how can i install it?, Thank.

Reply
tim

March 15, 2009

Francisco: sounds like you need to install samba, or more specifically the client parts of samba. Samba provides a CUPS backend ‘smb’ which you need for that.

Reply
Ian W Roberts

April 25, 2009

Printing at home has been a dream (easy, reliable, etc) since I set up an Ubuntu server (file and print sharing) using CUPS. 🙂

One suggestion, the test page that’s generated when I install the shared printer on workstations uses heaps of toner. I would like to suggest a design that tests much the same capabilities using smaller patches of colour.

I suspect that most people use that test page just to prove connectivity etc and other more complicated test pages could be provided via a web site.

Then again, I’m not entirely sure who’s responsible for the test page design. It bears a large ubuntu icon and header at the top, 8 rows of colour test strips (grayscale, RBG & CMYK). Each row is 14mm high and extends the full with of my A4 page in 11 steps of saturation.

At the bottom is a footer: Product: GPL Ghostscript Version: 3010 Revision: 861

Printing on my most recently upgraded workstation (ubuntu 9.04) is using system-config-printer 1.1.3. The print configuration About panel had a link to this website.

Perhaps someone can direct me to a better destination for this gentle feedback.

Reply
Lucelio

April 26, 2009

Hi,
5 months without printing on Linux Fedora(F10-x86_64).
What are the stept, for setting up Samsung CLP-350N Color Laser Printer.
Samsung doesn’t give any help.
Anybody can help?
Thanks.

Reply
GPD

April 27, 2009

hi,
I have a slight problem with my HP1300. I use 100gr papers with a XEROX toner and I need to set the fuser temperature a bit higher than what is proper for the original 80gr paper (and I suspect the HP toner), otherwise the toner is removed from the paper (not from letters, but parts from drawings for some reason).

Also, I need fuser temperature control to set this option to very low temperature for some DIY PCB transfers (i.e. set temp low, so that toner does not stick very much in paper and can transfer to copper plate easier with the iron) In Fedora 8 it had this option, i.e. 80gr, 100gr, 120gr, coarse paper etc; in Fedora 10 either it does not, or I am … too blind to see them!

In case they are not there indeed, I guess that the advanced options somehow will permit this, but I do not understand how to use them. I suspect that the CUP API relates to this, but I need a few hints, so could you please drop a line or two or point to an advanced options tutorial? Ideally, could you please “return” these features?

thank you!
GPD

Reply
tim

April 28, 2009

GPD: the content of the “printer options” screen comes entirely from the PPD for the queue, which depends on the driver selected. Perhaps you are using a different driver than previously?

Reply
tim

April 28, 2009

Ian W Roberts: that sounds like a custom test page shipped by Ubuntu. The test page that will be included in CUPS 1.4 currently looks like this (the fields are filled in dynamically):

Reply
GPD

April 29, 2009

hi, you are absolutely right. Fedora 10 opted for HP 1300 hpij foomatic. I used the HP 1300 postscript in the past and all options appeared back. Thanks for the heads up mate!

(now for some reason I need to understand why there appear SOOOOOOO many printers with the same description in the driver select menu.)

p.s. any chances the postscript driver is MUCH slower than the hpij foomatic?

Reply
Bill McD

May 6, 2009

Am new to Ubuntu and don’t know how to install a driver for my HP PHOTOSMART 3210 printer which is on my wireless network, Any and all help appreciated, Thanks.

Reply
David

May 19, 2009

I think this is probably an NSS library issue, but system-config-printer gives

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0xb5a37290 in _nss_mdns4_minimal_gethostbyname2_r () from /lib/libnss_mdns4_minimal.so.2

when trying to look at the printers attached to a Windows machine by SAMBA unless I have commented out references to mdns4_minimal and mdns4 in /etc/nsswitch.conf (I don’t know if it’s actually necessary to comment them both out, but I did that and it worked)

Reply
tim

June 1, 2009

That’s nothing to do with system-config-printer, but one of the libraries on your system.

This is not a bug reporting page: please report bugs to the organization responsible for your Linux distribution, as described above.

Reply
Mike Smith

June 2, 2009

Hi Tim,

Is there a facility to print what would normally be an A4 print (or letter) as an A5 booklet. i.e. rotate the output 90 degrees, leave a blank page, duplex on short edge, do the hard stuff also around shuffling the pages so they stay in sequence when stapled down the middle.

This would help me save a lot of paper and there seems to be a bit of interest in other forums.

Perhaps this is a CUPS option but with CUPS I’m a bit of a NOOB ;D

Mike Smith – dominoconsultant.org

Reply
tim

June 2, 2009

Some (expensive) printers are able to perform booklet finishing natively, and have a PPD option to control that, although the fact that you’re asking about how to do it suggests you don’t have one of these. 😉

CUPS does not have support for performing this step itself, although you can use the ‘psbook’ command from the psutils package to process your document into a booklet and print the resulting file, making sure to duplex it correctly.

Reply
Mike Smith

June 4, 2009

Thanks for your prompt response Tim.

You’re correct; I don’t have a super-dooper fantastic printer. It’s an older HP LaserJet 2200 with a duplexing option. I think I’m like many other people in that I’m often compelled to use older equipment.

I can see some options in the printer driver which is what prompted me to ask about the CUPS options.

Ideally, I’m seeking a solution that could be set-up as a “printer” that I could print to from any application regardless of if the originating source material was a PDF or not. Then the output could hopefully be sent through almost any printer.

my understanding with the psbook is that it wouldn’t fit the brief.

Is my objective a reasonable one? Is this the best methodology for a long-term “modular” solution?

Your guidance would be most appreciated.

Mike Smith – dominoconsultant.org

Reply
tim

June 4, 2009

This upstream bug report suggests that booklet support won’t be added to CUPS in the near future.

Reply
Tom Stocker

July 2, 2009

Hi Tim

I’ve got the following Problem. Need to compile a s-c-p version with add printer grouping feature (< 1.1.0) on SpenSolaris 200906 / SPARC. Unfortunately there are no python 2.6 bindings precompiled in OSOL, so starting the s-c-p will result in an:

jack@cupssrv:~$ exec /usr/local/share/system-config-printer/system-config-printer.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/share/system-config-printer/system-config-printer.py", line 30, in
import dbus
ImportError: No module named dbus

So now my question: Is there a version of s-c-p with add printer group feature but against python 2.4?

Many thanks in advance

Tom

Reply
tim

July 2, 2009

Tom: the short answer is “no”. I’ve been made aware that system-config-printer-1.1 does not run correctly in Python 2.4, but I don’t have any time to work on that. I will consider patches if you send them.

Reply
Tom Stocker

July 2, 2009

well, I’ll take a last approach tomorrow by compiling python bingingds on OSOL. If it fails (what i expect within a workday), I’ll cancel this “stupid” project. But even if I’am lucky this is somekind of an unsupported monster. Maybe better to cancel.

Anyway thank you veryvery much for your quite prompt answer.

Keep up your real good work !

Reply

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