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Recently I installed latest Inkscape version as snap package and it was all fine until I tried to print something. Only "Print to file" was listed. Any advice on how to get it to see my printer?

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  • Don't have either inkscape snap or printer so can't really answer. try removing the snap, sudo snap remove inkscape ; then reinstall with this option, sudo snap install --classic inkscape
    – doug
    Feb 23, 2017 at 12:13
  • @doug Works like a charm. Write this as an answer so I can mark it answered Feb 24, 2017 at 20:17

3 Answers 3

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It's not a bug. Snaps run in containers with separate environments which prevent applications to access all the system (as the classic applications do) for security. By default printers are not accessible, but can be enabled with:

sudo snap connect inkscape:cups-control :cups-control

That will allow printers to show in Inkscape. Change inskcape for the name of the application (for example, gimp) if needed. It happened to me with WPS Office: this was my question.

You need to restart the application to take effect.

In my personal opinion, it would be nice if during installation you could specify such permissions or that the applications could decide which permissions requires and let the user know about them (like Android applications).

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By default snaps are confined to the user's $HOME which can lead to some access issues. In this case it seems more a bug or current limitation of the inkscape snap that it can't access the printer.

So atm the snap can be installed with the --classic option to disable confinement.

If snap is already installed then remove

sudo snap remove inkscape

Then install with the option

sudo snap install --classic inkscape

This option will prove useful with other snaps, particularly media players.

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  • I ran snap install --classic vlc but still, VLC 3.0 as a snap cannot read files from a different partition. If there is no way to disable confinement, for some application such as VLC where media can reside outside of the application's partition, it is a show stopper. There are ways to go around with bind mounts, but sure is not user friendly. Mar 24, 2018 at 10:28
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    @ Hans DeragonIn, 16.04 & 18.04 there is no longer any need to use --classic, vlc is allowed to browse external volumes. I don't think using --classic with vlc would have any effect either way..
    – doug
    Mar 24, 2018 at 16:55
  • Doug, my partition is not an external volume. It is a 2nd partition of my primary hard disk. And snap does not allow access to them as of 2018-03-25. See bug report: Bug #1620771 Mar 25, 2018 at 18:59
  • Doesn't matter, as I said vlc works with all mounted volumes in 16.04 & 18.04, if you're using something else you should mention..
    – doug
    Mar 25, 2018 at 19:41
  • Doug, I do not understand your comment. I presented you a bug report that states clearly that VLC cannot read files from my 2nd partition on my HDD. And I confirm that bug; on my 16.04 system, I cannot read files from my 2nd partition on my HDD with VLC installed as a snap. It is not a matter of opinion, but a fact. Mar 25, 2018 at 21:27
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While it may not be a bug. What is a bug is that cups-control doesn't even show up as a connection until you connect to it.

ppetraki@vanguard:~/Sandbox/graphics$ snap connections | grep cups
ppetraki@vanguard:~/Sandbox/graphics$ sudo snap connect brave:cups-control  :cups-control
[sudo] password for ppetraki: 
ppetraki@vanguard:~/Sandbox/graphics$ snap connections | grep cups
cups-control              brave:cups-control                         :cups-control                    manual

So you can't solve the problem until you know what the solution looks like. I was looking for things like "lpr" or "printer" in the list of available connections to no avail. This is on 18.04.

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