Launchpad Entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/automatic-printer-conf
Created: 2006-11-27 by MartinPitt
Packages affected: cupsys, printerdrake, gnome-volume-manager
Summary
In order to make its setup easier, the printer should be configured fully automatically if possible (i. e. if a matching driver is available). If there is no driver, the user should be guided through the installation process with as few questions as possible.
Rationale
Use cases
- Claire plugs in her new Samsung ML-1610 USB printer. The standard Ubuntu installation ships a matching driver for it, and the driver is automatically configured with the name "ML-1610" without any interaction.
Jane just bought the latest HP MegaInk 3042 USB printer. Feisty does not yet have a driver for it, so she gets a dialog asking to select one (or installing a driver from an external source such as a CD-ROM). She tries and selects the driver for the MegaInk 3020, prints a test page, is satisfied with the result, and clicks Ok to finish the installation.
Scope
- This specification only covers the cupsys printing system, which we use by default in Ubuntu.
We only consider local USB printers in this spec. Parallel printers do not support hot plugging (here one can at least trigger an auto setup on boot), network printers are automatically set up on the clients since Hoary, and the configuration of network printing on the server side has its own spec (PrinterSharing).
Design
Replace the old, dead gnome-cups-manager with Printerdrake (see PrinterDrake spec, which is a dependency of this spec).
- Printerdrake already has a mode for (semi-)automatically configuring new printers. It will be tied into the existing desktop hotplug handling infrastructure.
Implementation
In Mandriva, printerdrake ships a lot of scripts which call Printerdrake in auto-configuration mode through an udev script and lots of hacks. These will go away entirely, instead we configure gnome-volume-manager to call Printerdrake in this mode whenever hal detects a new device which is capable of printing.