cups-lpq doesn't tell you where a printer is

[geofft]

dr-wily:~ geofft$ lpq -Pmassave
Printer: massave@mulch  'HP NW86-158'
 Queue: no printable jobs in queue
 Status: job 'fiona_yu@sp-res14+812' removed at 13:47:05.689
 Filter_status: done at 13:47:05.636
dr-wily:~ geofft$ lpq -Ptree-eater
tree-eater is ready
no entries

If we ever end up writing our own lpq or fixing lpstat or whatever, this would be a nice feature to bring back.

[jdreed]

The GUI gives this info, so it's probably available somehow. I'm not convinced it's useful, however. Frequently, the problem is that people in W20-575 can't find a printer, and knowing the room number won't help. The information may also be very wrong. For example:

Printer: wired@mulch  'HP5SI 11-226'
 Queue: no printable jobs in queue
 Status: removing job 'akiss@GOOD-APPLE+285' at 18:44:44.767
 Filter_status: device = 'Warming Up' at 15:24:49.498

'wired' hasn't been in 11-226 since 1996.

[jdreed]

Irrelevant in the Pharos world.

[geofft]

So long as there exists an Athena print infrastructure that is not Pharos for non-cluster printers (those in DLC/student group offices, or non-release-team-owned cluster spaces like the 6.004 lab), this is still relevant.

[jdreed]

So, this is easy using just the cups module (cups.Connection().getPrinterAttributes(queuename)['printer-location']). This is hard given how debathena-printing-config is architected. I also maintain this is an upstream utopia bug, since we're asking for a feature CUPS' lpq doesn't have.

[jdreed]

Hrm, you probably want printer-info? too, since that's what we gave LPRng

[jdreed]

The goal is to stop adding features to the wrappers. LPRng includes certain fields in its lpq output, CUPS does not. This is a CUPS upstream bug.

Also, the average undergrad does not know that lpq did this, and does not miss anything. Also, the average undergrad does not use lpq.