hplip show appear in System > Preferences menu

[Paco Avila]

Binary package hint: hplip

HPlip show appear in System > Preferences menu because it is installed by default, but is only accesible from command line. There is also a missing dependency with python-qt3

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

This is a dist-upgrade issue if you upgraded from Edgy to Feisty or if you kept your /home partition, on a clean Feisty install the following GUI dialog is shown after clicking the HPLIP Toolbox menu item: PyQt not installed. GUI not available. Install "python-qt3" with the Synaptic Package Manager (Menu: System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) or run the command "sudo apt-get install python-qt3" in a terminal window.

Please remove hplip.desktop and/or hp-toolbox.desktop from ~/.local/share/applications/
HPLIP Toolbox is hidden from the menus by default, you need to show it by clicking System > Preferences > Main Menu then select System > Preferences > HPLIP Toolbox.

Since hplip.desktop has NoDisplay=true we will always have to show it in the menus through System > Preferences > Main Menu which creates a copy of the desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/ with NoDisplay=false.
So this is a bug in hplip, on a dist-upgrade hplip.desktop and hp-toolbox.desktop under ~/.local/share/applications/ should be removed for all users.

A dependency on python-qt3 was not added to hplip because:
1) On a server installation we don't want python-qt3 to be installed.
2) Not everybody has a HP printer and some older HP printer can't use the HPLIP Toolbox, python-qt3 and its dependencies waste 33 MB of installed hard disk space for these people.
3) The space on the desktop/server CD is limited: the python-qt3 package and its dependencies would have to be on the CD.

[Paco Avila (monkiki)]

Very, very good problem description. Thanks!

[unggnu (unggnu)]

Even with a new Feisty installation and a new home directory HPLIP Toolbox is deactivated in menu per default. This doesn't appear in Dapper or Edgy. It would be great if this menu entry could be back again in Gutsy. Python-qt3 isn't needed since there is a good error description but at least HPLIP Toolbox should be find easily.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

This problem was solved by the introduction of the hplip-gui package