Default printing setting issues with print-manager

[Angel Docampo]

Hi list,

Well, I won't dig deeper on this as I'm now leaving my current job. I still believe print-manager (and the other CUPS GUI front ends) should configure the printers as per user, just as other OSes -and official CUPS command line tools- does, but I completely understand and respect everyone does with their free time whatever they want, as I do myself.

After dealing with Plasma the last months trying to make it a corporate desktop, I can write down some aspects I think Linux desktop in general and Plasma in particular should improve in order to get some attraction in mid to large-scale corporate scenarios and give that study to my employers, so they will evaluate if they need to hire someone or search for another already corporate ready solution.

I can give you a copy, or even better, next time we meet, we can discuss why -despite my displeasure for printers- is so important to have a flexible print manager on the enterprise, and I think is a(nother) key if you want Plasma to be feasible as corporate desktop.

We can discuss this and other points I saw the last year and a half, as long as you don't take them as insults to the desktop, or personal attacks to its developers, but just what they are: things I think they need to be polished.

Best,



Angel Docampo
Datalab Tecnologia, s.a.
Castillejos, 352 - 08025 Barcelona
Tel. 93.476.69.10 - 6711
________________________________
De: Albert Astals Cid <tsdgeos at gmail.com> en nombre de Albert Astals Cid <aacid at kde.org>
Enviado: jueves, 12 de julio de 2018 0:00:49
Para: enterprise at kde.org
Cc: Angel Docampo
Asunto: Re: Default printing setting issues with print-manager

El dijous, 28 de juny de 2018, a les 9:56:56 CEST, Angel Docampo va escriure:
> Hi Albert

Hi, sorry it took so long to answer.

> Daniel was crystal clear he won't fix anything and he would only accept a
> patch if he thinks is good,

That seems fair to me, he's a volunteer, he stated he was not convinced to
work on it himself but he didn't block a patch, i don't know why you say
"only" in your sentence, obviously we don't want bad patches :)

> so I thought it could be useful to write to the
> enterprise list, because Daniel seems to see print-manager from the home
> desktop user's point of view. If I did wrong, sorry for that, I though you
> could help with some patch (I though you, like me, will understand the need
> to this issue), I wasn't trying to scorn Daniel by any means. If the
> Enterprise KDE official's point of view is trying to convince to the
> maintainer I will try it or will look for another solution.

The problem i personally see is that you brought new arguments to support the
need for improvement to us instead of telling Daniel, in my opinion you should
have brought that to the bug first.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now that i read the bug again I see that you commented
this on the bug and that Daniel made exactly the points I'm making here, so
I'll stop trying to convince you :)

As someone that has worked a bit with CUPS, I think Daniel is mostly right and
that the CUPS API is very limited in regards to this, i still think it could
be made to work, but as Daniel I don't really have much free time to work on
this, but if there is someone interested in implementing it, please contact me
and i'll try to dig some pointers.

Best Regards,
  Albert

P.S: Shameless plug: If you have some money, the company I work for has fixed
some CUPS issues in Qt so you may want to contract us.

>
> Regarding my signature's footer, no, I can't remove it (that piece of text
> is attached on the mail server). Now is more visible to be compliant with
> GDPR, but this text was there since the very first email I sent to the
> list, it was just a link pointing to the same text. Anyway I guarantee to
> you the freely distribution of all mails from me to this list.
>
>
>
> Angel Docampo
> Datalab Tecnologia, s.a.
> Castillejos, 352 - 08025 Barcelona
> Tel. 93.476.69.10 - 6711
>
> ________________________________________
> De: Albert Astals Cid <tsdgeos at gmail.com> en nombre de Albert Astals Cid
> <aacid at kde.org> Enviado: miércoles, 27 de junio de 2018 21:08
> Para: enterprise at kde.org
> Cc: Angel Docampo
> Asunto: Re: Default printing setting issues with print-manager
>
> El dimecres, 27 de juny de 2018, a les 10:24:13 CEST, Angel Docampo va
>
> escriure:
> > Hello,
>
> Hi
>
> > Yesterday I opened a feature request on the tracker regarding the printing
> > default's behaviour.
> >
> > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=395885
> >
> >
> > In short, print-manager saves the settings globally, so you need the root
> > credentials. On the enterprise side, this won't be possible, so I ask
> > print-manager maintainer to save the settings (i.e: setting default
> > printer, color quality, paper size, etc) as per user, so we can have
> > multi-seats computers, roaming profiles and the possibility to scripting
> > whatever we want as the current user without root permission's involved,
> > while the home user didn't notice the change, as usually home desktops are
> > single-user and they will be fine if CUPS settins are per user instead as
> > global.
> >
> >
> > It seems print-manager maintainer refuses to fix because he says CUPS
> > doesn't provide any API for that purpose so print-manager have to have
> > root
> > permissions... I'm not a developer but I know cli tools like lpadmin,
> > lpstat, lpq and lpoptions, all from CUPS package, that do exactly what I
> > think Plasma for the enterprise needs, without the need of root
> > credentials.
>
> If you think he is wrong, you'll have to convince him of that. Why are you
> speaking of that lpoptions, etc here and not on the bug?
>
> > No està permesa la seva reproducció o distribució sense
> > l'autorització expressa de DATALAB TECNOLOGIA.
>
> About this footer, can you please remove it from your emails that you send
> to a public mailing list?
>
> You're telling us we don't have the rights to redistribute your email
> without express authorization but then again you're sending the email to a
> mailing list that all it does is redistribute your email so it feels a bit
> weird.
>
> Cheers,
>   Albert