[GUI] Allow user to 'restart', 'stop' and 'start' /etc/init.d/cupsys via system-config-printer

I've attached a very quick mockup -- I'm sure you can imagine it with different icons, etc.

I'm not too sure how important this is. This sounds more like a feature request though. I think it could probably be implemented in the applet too. I believe that after any major change, cups restart is done anyways and any user with enough idea that there's a server beneath that needs to be configured might probably go ahead and do it with the cupsys restart command. We might just have a "refresh" command that makes things a lot easier for the end user. It can be an exec restart command that will restart the cupsys server.

Just for the information, about the problem you described in the first paragraph, this is probably related to the regression described in bug 183652

I understand that a regular *Linux* user should know enough to run 'sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart', but there is no way that any of my Linux clients could or should ever know that.

If there is a problem with their printer, I will assume that they will go to System > Administration > Printing, just as if there is a problem in Windows, you go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Printers and Faxes. The thing is, if there is ever a problem with CUPS and the message 'Not connect to server' is displayed in the status bar, people won't know what to do, or at the very least, won't have to tools for what needs to be done.

Thus, I believe this sort of control needs to be added to allow the user full control of their printer and computer using the GUI.

It is important to note that, although it may be possible to restart the CUPS server when it is on the local machine, it is not possible when the server is remote.

It seems to me that it would make more sense to have a framework for restarting the CUPS scheduler automatically in case of a crash (any such case of this being a CUPS bug), so that the user need not know what has happened -- or is prompted for a bug report -- rather than adding UI bits in the wrong place just to deal with bugs.

So my opinion is that what is needed here, if anything, is a 'bug-buddy' for servers, not any extra UI in system-config-printer.

On Jan 17, 2008 9:56 AM, Tim Waugh <email address hidden> wrote:

> It is important to note that, although it may be possible to restart the
> CUPS server when it is on the local machine, it is not possible when the
> server is remote.
>
Agreed.

>
> It seems to me that it would make more sense to have a framework for
> restarting the CUPS scheduler automatically in case of a crash (any such
> case of this being a CUPS bug), so that the user need not know what has
> happened -- or is prompted for a bug report -- rather than adding UI
> bits in the wrong place just to deal with bugs.
>
Yeah. Adding UI is essentially doing the same thing and still not solving
the problem too much. To make things easier, I'd say we just need to
automate the task of restarting the server in case of problem. Maybe a
refresh button that restarts the server in the background might be a good UI
decision although better automation might make such UI changes unnecessary

>
> So my opinion is that what is needed here, if anything, is a 'bug-buddy'
> for servers, not any extra UI in system-config-printer.
>
> --
> [GUI] Allow user to 'restart', 'stop' and 'start' /etc/init.d/cupsys via
> system-config-printer
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/183691
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

So that means that you two, Tim Waugh and pras, want a daemon to watch the CUPS daemon? What if both daemons go down?

The point of my argument is that you need to give more control to the user.

I agree however that having the server automatically restart makes a lot of sense and, quite often, will be transparent to the user, but if my grandmother had a problem with her printer and the cups server (for whatever reason) wasn't restarting, she would need to start/restart the server herself. Where is the option for her to do that currently?

Don't know about you guys, but on Fedora we have System->Administration->Services for that.

I think we can all agree that if the CUPS server needs restarting it's a CUPS bug.

And my grandmother (or your grandmother) would know to go to System > Administration > Services how? Even when they get there and see 'Printer service (cupsys)', it's not even clear if it has started or not. There is simply a check mark. No warning that the printer server is down, no method of telling the user how to get it back up. It's more logical to go to System > Administration > Printing and have a button that says 'Start Server' than to go to System > Administartion > Services ("What's a service and how does it correlate to my printer?" a regular user would ask).

I agree that I, as a power-user can fix these problems very easily, but none of my clientèle can because they need/want a point-and-click interface. Ubuntu is trying to provide such an interface, so I don't think this option should be overlooked.

I agree that adding a GUI element to work around bugs in the printing infrastructure is not the solution. I can see how 'System > Administration > Printing' may not be obvious to find, but it does represent one GUI-based way of resolving this. In reality there are many functions in any OS that average users cannot find. Such users would likely try 1) reboot 2) ask someone.