kallasoft

After being quite fed up with the cups web-admin app, I decided to go on a little hunt. I’m sure the CUPS admin page is great for some people but you never quite know if the back button will wreak havoc on your crazy LDAP-authenticated, SSL-encrypted setup that shares a printer from the basement room computer to which no doors have access.

I’m not a huge fan of web-admin apps that configure services running on my personal box, and not to rip on them, but I just want a standalone program that I can use to configure my printer. Maybe something that seems a little more tangible because it doesn’t run in Firefox…. Well, today I ran across a neat little utility that offered a similar interface and features of the standard CUPS web admin app, but instead a ‘native’ app (completely written in python).

Saying goodbye to back button woes couldn’t be easier… Just install pycups (from the same developer), pygtk, and the nifty little system-config-printer app found here. There is a little more doc on the website, and the project seems to be fairly active so getting help or reporting bugs would result in pretty quick responses.  Check it out and let us know what you think.

Note: If you are using Fedora, RedHat or Ubuntu you might already have this app under your Settings menus.