Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#1

Post by gmac » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP
printervention.app

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#2

Post by redeeman » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

surely a glorious OS like osx would not be without support for hardware that linux supports? when will it be year of osx desktop?

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#3

Post by morpheuskafka » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

If you are using an LLM, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just have the LLM find the relevant CUPS driver decompile or just capture the USB traffic, and rewrite it in Go or something native? (No need to deal with the system printing framework, the goal was just an app that accepts JPEG input.)

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#4

Post by hulitu » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 5:51 PM UTC

Another AI add.

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#5

Post by hahn-kev » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

This is pretty cool! Thanks for sharing.

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#6

Post by gmac » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC

morpheuskafka wrote: post #3

If you are using an LLM, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just have the LLM find the relevant CUPS driver decompile or just capture the USB traffic, and rewrite it in Go or something native? (No need to deal with the system printing framework, the goal was just an app that accepts JPEG input.)

Interesting suggestion: I guess that would have been possible. On the other hand I think this is a more general solution, and it does minimal reinventing-the-wheel.

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#7

Post by dolmen » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

morpheuskafka wrote: post #3

If you are using an LLM, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to just have the LLM find the relevant CUPS driver decompile or just capture the USB traffic, and rewrite it in Go or something native? (No need to deal with the system printing framework, the goal was just an app that accepts JPEG input.)

Or ask the agent to write a Dockerfile (to abstract the build environment) that builds CUPS and all your stuff around it directl in WASM, instead of targeting x86 and then emulating x86 with WASM.

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#8

Post by juancn » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

Thank you, loved this and it made me "duh!".

I have an old-ish Samsung laser printer that works perfectly and a Linux file server at home and the printer no longer supports AirPrint.

I never thought about using the Linux box as an AirPrint server! This will free me from all the odd print requests from my kids! (probably)

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#9

Post by SoftTalker » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

I have an old Epson MX80 dot-matrix printer in the closet, have thought about getting a Raspberry Pi and setting that up so we can wirelessly print to it. But... who would really want that?

Re: Rescuing old printers with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

#10

Post by monocasa » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

Isn't cups a de facto apple project? What's the VM getting you?