Show HN: Driverless print server for legacy printers, profit goes to open-source
printserver.inkThis is a device, to which you connect your older USB printer, and use it from any PC or smartphone without installing drivers (AirPrint/Mopria), wirelessly. As easy as that!
* Supports all OS: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android. No drivers needed. Windows-on-ARM and Apple M1/2/3/4 also supported.
* Supports the majority of printers released before ≈2018
* Profit from sold devices is shared between CUPS, SANE, AirSane open-source printing and scanning projects
* Surplus and donations are accumulated to improve current open-source drivers and develop new ones
All of this is bundled in a retail-like device, with simple web interface[1][2]. No tinkering and no DIY required, it's safe to plug off the power cord every time, and you can do factory reset.
The print server is secure by default: it conforms to most of the IoT Device Security Specification 1.0[3] best practices, has built-in firewall to ensure LAN-only operation, and does not include anti-consumer features.
All devices come with technical support, where I act as a middleman between all the involved projects and printer drivers. If there's a bug, I first try to debug the issue remotely, and if it's not possible, end up buying the same printer and debug it until the issue is resolved. All the fixes made during the development are contributed back to the origin projects, and there were many bugs fixed: almost every package has additional patches compared to original Debian 12 disto state.
[1]: https://printserver.ink/webface-main.png
[2]: https://printserver.ink/webface-other.png
[3]: https://csa-iot.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/23-80986-013-...
P.S. Brother printer lovers, the latest Brother L2800dw (2024) laser comes with the chipped cartridge, which you can't refill and reset forever anymore. The printer allows to continue printing with an "empty" cartridge with a special menu item, but it does so only to fixed amount of pages, and then stops. It doesn't allow to use cartridges without chips.
This is cool.
I had to do something similar to get an old Epson scanner to work. It astonished me that there are no drivers for it on the Epson website, no generic or legacy Windows drivers. And this was a serious hum-dinger of a scanner which is still much better than a brand new Epson because, shockingly, it's really hard to buy a decent scanner these days. They're ludicrously badly made unless you spend many thousands. Most of the high end ones are aimed at office scanning, with automatic page feed and high throughout etc. If you're an artist, you're screwed.
Obviously the scanner works on Linux, but my wife is the one who needs to use it. So I hacked together a Raspberry Pi, a heavily customised PHPSane and an ancient Apple iPad (that is similarly unsupported, with almost no software available in the store). The pi boots in about 5 seconds. Now anyone on the house WiFi can scan over the network or walk right up and use the web interface via the iPad which is mounted beside the scanner.
What was really enjoyable about the project was that I got to use one of my old Pis and a tablet that was heading for e-waste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fw7bZoPyVU
There's OpenAirScan for iPhone/iPad now, which was created somewhat recently, in 2023.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/openairscan/id1663611384
It doesn't have 100% compatibility with driverless scanning, but it's trying. If you share your scanner using AirSane on the Raspberry, it may work.
Strange that iOS doesn't have native scanning capabilities, only printing via AirPrint.
This project made me wonder if a "physical virtual printer" exists?
I'd love to send print jobs to a "non-physical" printer that any OS (and/or Adobe DC Reader) sees as a "completely legit, real, physical printer".
In other words, not just the "Print to PDF" option/dialog on the OS. Then after "printing", have a valid PDF appear on that device's target storage itself (eMMC/SD Card/SMB share...)?
Yes, and it's called a print server, as others said. FWIW, CUPS have a "virtual PDF printer" which enables "Print to PDF" feature system wide, so no application has to reimplement it.
Also, I used to use a "PDF printer" in the olden days on Windows which did exactly that, and that was considered a paid, premium product.
IOW, we have these. Both in personal and enterprise flavors, for a long time.
They are asking for a physical device with a memory card, that you attach to your computer and it appears as a printer to the computer and when you print to it, the device instead creates a PDF on its memory card. I think.
I also first started typing a comment about “PDF printer” software that I used to use on Windows XP back in the day before most programs and before Windows had a native export to PDF via print dialog. (These days I run macOS. So not sure if current Windows has export to PDF at system level when you print from any program. I know Office has built in export to PDF, and I think back in the day Office did not have that.)
> ... for a physical device with a memory card, that you attach to your computer and it appears as a printer to the computer and when you print to it, the device instead creates a PDF on its memory card. I think.
Actually, it doesn't matter. Install an operating system to any computer (from OrangePi Zero to a CRAY-1, doesn't matter), install a "virtual" PDF printer and share from the network. It'll appear as a printer. It'll print to a folder local to that machine, not yours. It's again the same thing (this is the magic of the network, actually).
IIRC from administering my parents' Windows PC, the OS now has Print to PDF capability built-in, but IDK whether that virtual printer is installed with Office, but it's out of the box.
Yes, it's called a print server.
Yes!! This is my preferred way to enable network printing and scanning. I've done this for about 5 years.
I've always hated having printers on my network, because vendor software is absolutely terrible. Completely insecure and open to who-knows-what through automatic updates.
I use a raspberry Pi and it works great even for non-technical family members. Printing from your phone is also really nice.
The functionality is about the same as the vendor printers. But the peace of mind is amazing. 100% assurance that there's nothing weird going on, it's secure, and there's no account and stupid cloud.
Dot-Ink is a wild TLD and very cool aesthetic choice for this project
This has the potential to be a big hit. Go on your Craigslist or Marketplace and search for printers. You will find lots of free or very cheap working printers being scrapped just because they don't natively work with iPhones. With a little more setup refinement, polish, and support, this could be "dropbox for printers".
In Europe and Asia there was once popular Canon LBP-1120, a 2002-2004 model. You can't use it in modern OS as the driver is for 32-bit Windows only, hence these devices could be bought as low as $7 on flea market.
These printers are still great! They sturdy and unkillable. And they are supported in the print server :P
Can you configure SSID and password when using the access point mode? For example when I have multiple of them in my university, I'd want to name them according to the rooms they sit in, while also making sure people can only print to the ones they can actually physically see (and therefore read the password off of a sticker)...
You can, but only manually via SSH. The Wi-Fi credentials are printed on the sticker, along with the QR code to connect, that's why I though it would be strange if you can't use it right away.
I wanted to buy one but I had to specify the printer, this confused me. This device should not be locked for one printer.
It's not.
Years ago I got an Airport Express for this. They also had an audio port for connecting a stereo to AirPlay.
Says it's open source but the link is password protected: https://printserver.ink/firmware/
I'll pass until that's normal.
This is an open source project in a technical sense (source is open and the license is open), but not in a social sense (no free as in beer available source code, no public support for everyone). Source code, as well as firmware updates and support, are provided only to the customers.
When I sell the print server, I ask the buyer for the printer model, check its compatibility, and sell the device + guarantee that it would work for the buyer's printer. If it doesn't work properly, I'm first trying to debug remotely, and I could not fix it, I'm buying the same printer on flea market and debugging and fixing it until it works, and contribute the fix to CUPS/SANE/printer driver package.
In other words, I sell tech support in a package, and I just don't sell the print server if it's incompatible with the printer.
The goal of this project is to provide *ready-to-use, no-DIY device*, to improve the underlying software by directly contributing to it, for anyone to benefit from the fix. If you want to contribute to the printing stack and already know where to start, you should improve relevant projects, such as CUPS, SANE, printer and scanner drivers.
This is a really cool business model. You're being paid to prepare the firmware for a specific device, but will open source what you prepare.
You said in the same sentence that the source is open and not freely available.
Yes, it's open only to the customers, as GPL requires:
Selling Free Software <https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html>
> Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.
> Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on.
You can buy only the firmware package as well, without the device. I'll send you the instruction on how to configure everything and which hardware modifications are required.
Selling non-free software under a GNU license != open source. The title will be misleading to most people. Nothing wrong with charging for your software, but you shouldn't call it open source.
Edit: Apparently I misread the title.
If you're implying something, then please get your thoughts across more clearly. The title says "profit goes to open-source", meaning CUPS, SANE, AirSane projects, which are FOSS (free and open-source), if the publicly available code and collaborative development is what you're referring to.
Additional software (web interface, scripts, utilities) is free, the source code is included in the source package.
The customer is provided with the source code of the firmware components, and with the build system based on mkosi[1] to build the complete firmware: starting from bootstrapping Debian 12 builder image which cross-compiles the packages with additional patches and builds additional software, to ARM Debian 12 image with everything compiled in the previous stage, to the final squashfs OS file and MicroSD image.
[1]: https://github.com/systemd/mkosi
Yeah sorry, I misread the title. I used Debian with CUPS on an SBC for something similar, but yours looks way more elegant. This concept is not just for old printers, BTW; a lot of new ones have buggy implementations or can't be trusted on WAN (looking at you HP). Thanks for the reply, wishing you success!
No prob! Hope we'll all get great 2D printer some day, from Framework or other user-facing company!
It's not that impossible than you may think: several Chinese companies have their own domestic laser printers, claiming of in-house components and development (Cumtenn, ZoneWin), and one company does inkjet printers in addition to lasers (Deli Printer).
Will Framework make a printer? No.
https://youtu.be/os_fHy1mB_M?si=0U1ywoRLGXZB0j1T
Is there any method possibility to purchase the software install on my own hardware and/or other payment methods? It is impossibility for self to send money to Russia without «consequences» and crypto is unpleasant KYC to access, much less importation of shipment from RU.
Yep, you'll need an OrangePi Zero 3 board, MicroSD, a button, and some soldering skills. Several options for non-KYC cryptocurrency exchanges exist[1], I also accept PayPal (non-RU account). Mail me!
[1]: https://kycnot.me/?t=exchange&q=&fiat=on
I think the nuance is that OP is charging for hardware , software, and service (firmware customization and support).
With regards to the software, it is open source but OP is only providing the code to customers who receive the end product. In part, OP is acting as a distributor of the software and is charging a fee for that distribution.
If anyone else gets their hands on that software, they can choose to become a distributor and make it publicly available. It’s their freedom to do so.
A overly simple way to look at is is that OP is choosing (as a small part of their business) to charge for the distribution of the source code but not the source itself.
In reality, it’s unlikely that OP will have a customer who only wants the source code and is willing to pay a fee for the distribution of it. Their customers are coming to them for the service and support.
Not OP but I think you're confused: GPL doesn't require source to be made publicly available to all.
You are only required to provide source to the users of your software.
The GPL is an open source license. It does not require that the source be public, just that people who receive the software also are granted the source with the GPL license.
If you buy it, you're free to redistribute the source. This is compliant with the GPL.
$35 is an amazing price point for this.
I was just wondering about this the other day with a Dell printer I love that's getting harder to setup via wifi.
I don't need your product as I run CUPS and AirPrint on a Raspberry Pi <https://np.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/o0tin5/using_gener...>, but you offer a useful product/service to those who are not inclined to figure out how to do so.
(I use the Pi with thermal 4x6 label printers that use either ZPL or variant thereof, to access them either by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.)
Right now CUPS does not publish all available custom page formats for label printers in a Windows 11 compatible way for true driverless printing, but some day I'll get my hands on this issue!
https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/issues/1017
> If there's a bug, I first try to debug the issue remotely
Does it mean you have remote access to the device?
I ask the customer to forward the SSH port over https://ssh-j.com
[flagged]