Problem is with the RUINATION of two of the best packages run in Linux-- Inkscape and Python.
How to fix--
Get out an old distro and old version of Inkscape along with a backup of the original INKCUT extension. Plop it in to the right folder- and be done with it.
I've spent days trying to figure this out- twice in the last 3 months to operate a little hpgl plotter to cut a couple things that I volunteered to do. Next time I think about volunteering- I'd be better off to just go stand on the highway. I've wasted more time trying to get my system to run InkCut. And I want to tell others- don't bother. Google and Windows along with the Google bootcamp are making drastic changes to both Inkscape and Python. They are not making these changes following the tried and pure Linux way-- but deprecating and ruining functions-- completely obliterating modules like Inkcut. And meanwhile these same idiots braggarts are posting about changes they have made to the Inkscape GUI interface so that it more replicates Android or Windows in some cases--they have made slider bar functions that can be moved back and forth to amaze their own eyeballs while adjusting gradients-- but they forgot that without Python compatibility, Inkscape freezes up our entire systems. If we wanted Windows- it was free for quite awhile. Apparently Linux users did not like Windows. So why are we allowing this transition?
Inkcut was as far as I know, the only free (and great) HPGL driver available. It kept the landfills free of plotters that if only for Windows would be end up in the landfill and replaced with new to keep up with the ever popular Windows obsolescent protocol.
I will spare everyone the rest of my frustration. I came from being a computer builder, a Windows Admin before PnP existed- when everything had to be done manually. I installed sophisticated hardware- even virtual equipment before it ever hit the market for use in mapping and GIS. I was an advanced AutoCAD user, a lover of DOS and came to Linux crippled by those habits. But I came to love Linux- admire module and package writers and teams- and am extremely frustrated and angry about what is happening to a project so many people contributed to. To see Microsoft Windows and Google get their claws into yet another project that people built--to take over and profit like they did with Android- is really wrong. Now we can't even have a f...ng HPGL plot driver. Nothing is sacred. We are now experiencing the same obsolescent protocol Windows implemented but this time it is more the confiscation protocol--- not HPGL, no 3D printers, no Plotters for the non-commercial users.
Thank you Inkcut for what you did design and for the many years of use I had from it reliably until 2021.