Network printer not discovered by system-config-printer

Woodsman · 06-27-2014, 07:22 PM

I am unable to see my network printer with the system-config-printer applet. CUPS and avahi are running. The avahi browser sees the printer. The CUPS web page sees the printer.

When I manually type the static IP address the applet sees the printer.

Same results on 14.0 and 14.1. I tested system-config-printer in two other distros and they find the printer immediately.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

frankbell · 06-27-2014, 07:50 PM

I may be wrong, but I think system-config-[something or other] is a Red Hat thing. Unfortunately, I'm not near my Slackware machine to test the command.

http://cyberelk.net/tim/software/system-config-printer/

chrisretusn · 06-28-2014, 05:42 AM

I always use CUPS to setup, configure my printers. I just tried using system-config-printer as root (and as normal user) and it comes up with a GUI Printer Settings window in KDE with my printer already configured.

tronayne · 06-28-2014, 06:08 AM

Is your printer by any chance an H-P? If so, just run hp-setup (as an ordinary user) and you'll be up and going real quick.

A nice little trick with a fixed-IP address is to add the name and address of the printer to /etc/hosts; e.g.,

Code:

192.168.1.15     InkJet

then everything can "find" it (or them).

Woodsman · 06-28-2014, 12:13 PM

Thanks for the responses. I am not looking for alternate solutions or work-arounds. I want to know why system-config-printer in Slackware does not see my network printer while the applet works fine in other distros. In the other distros, the moment I select the Network Printers option the printer appears. Not so in Slackware.

Didier Spaier · 06-28-2014, 05:50 PM

The file 70_printers.rules in the source package system-config-printer-1.4.3 grabbed from a Debian repository contains following rules:

Code:

# Low-level USB device add trigger
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", ENV{ID_USB_INTERFACES}=="*:0701??:*", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="configure-printer@usb-$env{BUSNUM}-$env{DEVNUM}.service"
# Low-level USB device remove trigger
ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{ID_USB_INTERFACES}=="*:0701*:*", RUN+="udev-configure-printer remove %p"

I am not sure that the first rule can work as-is in Slackware.

Granted, these rules are for USB printers not network printers, but some other stuff in the package could also need an adaptation.

Did you see interesting messages during compilation?

Did you see something interesting in the logs?

Woodsman · 06-28-2014, 07:09 PM

Quote:

The file 70_printers.rules in the source package system-config-printer-1.4.3 grabbed from a Debian repository contains following rules:

The rule set is not the same as those in the stock Slackware. As you mentioned, they are for USB printers and not network. Substituting the Debian rules in 14.1 made no difference.

Quote:

Did you see interesting messages during compilation?

No compiling. I am using the package as-is from the stock Slackware (l group).

Quote:

Did you see something interesting in the logs?

Nothing.

Edit: I rebuilt the package with avahi installed, thinking there might be a missing hook, but that made no difference. Still did not see the network printer.

Didier Spaier · 06-28-2014, 11:12 PM

Can you believe that? I didn't realize that network-config-printer is shipped in Slackware

Lesson learned: never post after midnight.

Unfortunately I can't help as I have no network printer.

ReaperX7 · 06-29-2014, 03:27 AM

Network printers go through CUPS and the network-config-printer utility. The system-config-printer is designed, as Didier pointed out, to target Parallel, USB, SCSI, and Serial ports only.

For those who need it ask... Network printers operate differently than local printers mostly due to the fact a network printer is designed to be a resource rather than an attached device. It attaches as a service resource over an IP and although it uses the same driver stack, it's how it attaches to the system that sees how the utilities used see it.

You should only need to use CUPS' intranet configuration and resource access utilities for a network print device. Webmin works well also.

gmgf · 06-29-2014, 05:00 AM

I have tested system-config-printer with hp photosmart c6180 on slack-current, and it work here, my printer, is configured with an IP fix, hplip, is installed,
the cups and snmpd daemon are actived, i have used the search fonction with IP printer on system-config-printer.

Woodsman · 06-29-2014, 12:09 PM

Quote:

The system-config-printer is designed, as Didier pointed out, to target Parallel, USB, SCSI, and Serial ports only.

The applet finds network printers in other distros.

Quote:

You should only need to use CUPS' intranet configuration and resource access utilities for a network print device. Webmin works well also.

Please read comment #5. I am not interested in work-arounds. I want to know why the applet does not work in Slackware.

Quote:

my printer, is configured with an IP fix, hplip, is installed,

I have hplip installed. What do you mean by 'an IP fix'?

Quote:

the cups and snmpd daemon are actived

I have CUPS running but not snmpd. The latter is not running in the other distros either. Starting the daemon in Slackware made no difference. I don't think snmpd is a requirement. I thought perhaps avahi was needed but enabling avahi in Slackware did not help. As I mentioned in my original post, the avahi browser sees the printer and the CUPS web page sees the printer. In the other distros my printer appears immediately in the applet list. There is something else missing in Slackware or in my setup.

gmgf · 06-29-2014, 12:29 PM

static IP, sorry.

ReaperX7 · 06-29-2014, 01:00 PM

Technically you could argue that using system-config-printing is a workaround for CUPS also, but that's not the case.

To better diagnose why it's not detecting Woodsman, you may want to do a dependency trace and go back through all the dependencies and see if secondary dependencies are met properly.

Let start with these as a package trace. Do you have any of the following:

Python-dbus
Python-cups
Python-cupshelpers
Python-smbc
Cups-pk-helper
System-config-printer-udev

Usually some packages in Slackware aren't always built with an optional dependency in the tree for whatever the reason including compatibility, performance, lack of package, etc. You may have to go deeper into the dependency tree and find out what might be missing and then rebuild those packages to add that functionality.

And yes this is a Red Hat package, and from reading up on it, it has a history of issues and some ongoing problems outside that fact. It seems some distributions and people can't get it work properly.

Woodsman · 06-29-2014, 05:48 PM

Quote:

static IP, sorry.

Ah, ok. I assigned a static IP to my printer too. As I mentioned previously, the applet finds the printer right away when I manually type the IP address. Just not automatically like in the other distros.

Quote:

Let start with these as a package trace. Do you have any of the following:

None of those packages are available by that name in Slackware. Pat seldom breaks packages into small packages like the Debian folks. So the question then becomes whether Pat builds the parent packages with the equivalent configuration options. Specific to this thread, probably not.

Quote:

And yes this is a Red Hat package, and from reading up on it, it has a history of issues and some ongoing problems outside that fact. It seems some distributions and people can't get it work properly.

Not relevant to this thread. I already mentioned the applet works as expected in the other distros.

ReaperX7 · 06-29-2014, 08:14 PM

Then maybe that's the answer... Research the package configurations and then see if the trace back through the dependencies and see if something isn't resolved.

Plus even if you see Debian and others break down packages, you can always see the package content and research exactly what source package it comes from, see if a SlackBuild exists, add it, and rebuild the system-config-printer package against anything else in the dependency list.

If it's worth asking... Which desktop system are you using, as system-config-printer is by nature, a GNOME package.