ETA Printer Manager

Overview

ETA Printer Manager is a GTK3-based printer and scanner management utility designed for Pardus and Debian-based Linux environments. It streamlines device setup, queue monitoring, and driver installation while proactively solving common Linux printing issues—such as devices defaulting to non-functional "Generic" drivers when required packages are missing.

Features

• Proactive Driver Installation: Checks for required driver packages (e.g., hplip, printer-driver-brlaser) before registering the device with CUPS. If missing, it installs drivers via an embedded live terminal dialog, preventing the printer from being added as an unusable "Generic" device.
• Native GTK3 Print Queue Window: Replaces external browser-based CUPS management with a clean, fully integrated GTK3 print queue interface.
• Smart Auto-Refresh: Utilizes a non-blocking GLib timer (2-second interval) to perform delta updates on print jobs without clearing the treeview, eliminating screen flicker, preserving row selection, and keeping CPU/RAM consumption minimal.
• Pure Native pycups Backend: Interacts directly with the CUPS IPP API instead of executing shell subprocess commands (lpstat, cancel), providing faster execution and clean data parsing.
• Human-Readable Job Details: Formats raw Unix timestamps into YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS strings, converts bytes into KB/MB, and reliably resolves originating user attributes.
• Form Validation: Validates IP addresses and URIs during manual printer setup to prevent invalid system configurations.

Usage

• Device Overview: Launch the app to view all configured and discovered printers/scanners.
• Print Queue: Click Open Queue on any printer to monitor active print jobs in real-time or cancel specific jobs.
• Driver Setup: When adding a new printer, the app automatically prompts to install driver packages if missing and shows live progress inside an embedded terminal.

Dependencies & Requirements

Ensure all required system dependencies and Python libraries are installed:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-gi python3-cups gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gir1.2-vte-2.91 cups
Running the Application
Navigate to the project directory and run the application using Python's module flag:

Bash
cd pardus-printers
python3 -m src.main
Troubleshooting
CUPS Service Not Running: Ensure the CUPS service is active on your system:

Bash
sudo systemctl status cups
Driver Terminal Fails to Open: Ensure gir1.2-vte-2.91 is installed to support embedded VTE terminal dialogs.

Permission Issues: Package installation for missing drivers requires system administrator credentials via pkexec.

License
This project is licensed under the GPL v3 License. See the LICENSE file for more details.

Acknowledgments
pycups: For providing native Python bindings for the CUPS API.

PyGObject / GTK3: For the GUI framework.

VTE (Virtual Terminal Emulator): For embedded terminal rendering during driver installation.

CUPS: The standards-based printing system for Linux.