Checking the ink level of your printer

There are several existing tools to check the ink level of your printer.
Let’s take two of them : ink and inkblot

Install them :

root@localhost:~# apt-get install ink inkblot

ink is a command-line tool whereas inkblot is an ink level monitor with a GUI.
Please verify that your printer is currently supported :
http://libinklevel.sourceforge.net/#supported

If your printer belongs to the list of the supported ones, you have to add read access to the device
which stands for your printer :

root@localhost~# chmod o+r /dev/usb/lp0

As a non-root user, to check the ink level :

fool@localhost:~$ ink -p usb

Here is the kind of result you could expect :

ink v0.5.0 (c) 2009 Markus Heinz

hp deskjet 5550

Black:                         70%
Color:                         87%

If you launch inkblot from your Gnome menu, then a icon will appear in your tray icon.
By left-clicking on it, you will get the status of your ink level within a pop-up.

More info :   man ink
                  man inkblot

Nota Bene : make sure that your printer is correctly plugged and switched on.

How to delete the remaining configuration files after issuing apt-get remove ?

After issuing a command like apt-get (remove|purge), some configuration files remain whereas the packages to whom they belong have just been removed.
The following command will help you keeping up to date all the useful configuration files :

dpkg –purge `dpkg –get-selections|awk ‘/deinstall/ {print $1}’`