HP or KDE printing utilities

[SaverioB]

Hi all!

I have some troubles in understanding how printing is managed in Kubuntu Jaunty...

I have the HP icon in my system bar, I can right click on it and access the status and the settings of my printer (a network HP printer on my LAN). From there, I can also add another printer, for example.

However, in the KDE System Settings, there is another printer configuration "page", where I see the same printer listed with "hp:/net/HP_LaserJet_4_Plus?ip=192.168.1.3 " as its device Uri.
The same if I access CUPS via webbrowser on http://localhost:631

Is it normal to have this kind of settings duplicated?

When I print from an application, I can choose the printer according to its names in the KDE printer settings, not the HP ones.
And, when printing start, I have to icons in the tray, the HP icon with a popup saying the a document is being printed, and the KDE printer icon saying the same.

I don't like it very much to have these two frameworks at the same time, unless you tell me that they are different in some way.
Otherwise, I would want to remove one of the two.

What do you think?
Thanks!

Saverio

[ukchucktown]

Re: HP or KDE printing utilities

Printing in Linux is handled by CUPS (www.cups.org). The default console to CUPS is the web interface at http://localhost:631. That is what I personally use to configure printers. I don't have printer options available from System Settings in 9.04 so I can't speak to what KDE is showing you. The data is from CUPS so it's not really duplicated settings, more like the same settings with alternate views. HP may have an alternate GUI to add and display printer status but the information should be coming from CUPS.

[kjjjjshab]

Re: HP or KDE printing utilities

The HP utility is also letting you see ink levels and the like, so having it as a dup isn't all bad.

[SaverioB]

Re: HP or KDE printing utilities

Thanks for your replies.

Yes, they are actually accessing to the same list of printers (almost).
Actually in the HP toolbox you can access to all the printers in CUPS that have hp:/ as URi.

Moreover, in the HP toolbox you cannot access some properties (like duplex printing in my case).

I personally think that this is not the most rigorous approach to printing, and I would really like a tidier approach. (for example I don't like the fact that if in Okular I decide to print a document one page per sheet, the printer prints duplex because in CUPS the option is set in this way - I think it gives to the user a very bad experience...).

In my case my old HP printer does not give any cartridge / status info, so I'm really thinking using the old option HP Jetdirect as Uri in CUPS, and just forget about HPLIP... at least to avoid two system notification popups in the system bar for every page I print.

Saverio