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

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

#81

Post by george916a »

steve-atx-7600 wrote: post #80

If you value reliability and have other things to do besides maintaining a Linux machine, I recommend https://www.decisivetactics.com/products/printopia/ for Mac OS (works on Tahoe). I scrapped my Linux box, got a Mac mini for a home server, and use printopia (not the pro version, just the buy it once individual version) for using my 2 10-20 year old printers on my lan. Can even air print to them. I used to do this w…

It’s pretty easy now days on Linux. Including AirPrint bridging to legacy (even real old) printers.

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

#82

Post by Gigachad »

leptons wrote: post #72
Gigachad wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user gets spammed with a million permissions popups a day and has no idea what they are actually accepting or what the risks are. The same looking permissions popup usually means something incredibly trivial like notifications or camera, while the webusb spec is exposing you to potentially high risks of damage to hardware or data theft.

>The user gets spammed with a million permissions popups a day and has no idea what they are actually accepting or what the risks are. "A million" is quite the hyperbole. So let's just not do anything anymore because it might cause a permission popup? Or because some idiot might trust a scam website? That's your argument? Sorry, it's not a good argument. >while the webusb spec is exposing you to potentially high risk…

That’s the source of the issue. Apple sells products that are safe for someone’s stupid grandfather. WebUSB is not safe for people who don’t understand the implications. Which is most people.

The rest can choose a different browser.

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

#83

Post by ggm »

sublinear wrote: post #70
ValdikSS wrote: post #68

>Perhaps I could set them up a Raspberry Pi as a print server? But that would make it not so cheap. And anyway, I’m not convinced they’d go for the extra plugs and wires. $35 and it's yours, with tech support and CUPS/SANE development funding included, and all open source: https://printserver.ink Extra plugs could be eliminated with the help of "IEC320 3 pin C14 TO Male C13+2" cable: https://ae-pic-a1.aliexpress-medi…

> 1 GiB LPDDR4 Wouldn't this be a huge problem trying to print anything with images or more than a page or two (most PDFs for example)?

print spoolers typically consume space in /var/ for the files being printed and then stream them to the device through the output filters. The amount of data in play to render a page is not typically that big. Yes, there are corner cases analogous to a zip bomb which can make the print model explode. No, in practice this isn't very normal: printing is one of the spaces where compression of the data is entirely normal. "please print another row of black, where black is that thing I told you before, do that 2048 times and then come back"

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

#84

Post by amaccuish »

simoncion wrote: post #62
gmac wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough! I just don’t think I fully understand what you’re suggesting.

> I just don’t think I fully understand what you’re suggesting. Sure, sure. Like I said, given your commercial (and closed-source) aspirations, I'm happy to consult on your project as a paid contractor. Doing work for free on a closed-source for-profit project is neither interesting nor in my interest.

I dont understand what you're suggesting either given the whole point was to avoid having separate hw).

And if you're not going to spell it out due to your morals, don't comment.

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

#85

Post by Chepko932 »

Running automation pipelines with LangGraph agents that control real hardware (Raspberry Pi Pico W over USB HID) makes sandboxing non-negotiable. A rogue agent on a terminal is annoying, and sending the wrong HID commands to a device can brick it.

So here’s what I did: the agent only spits out a JSON action plan and never executes anything directly. A separate validator checks the plan against a whitelist of allowed USB commands before anything gets sent forward. In short, treat the agent like an untrusted external contributor—that’s exactly what it is.

The SSH/VM approach from the article works well for pure coding. But with hardware-in-the-loop setups, you need that extra barrier between "the agent wants to do X" and "X actually happens."

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

#86

Post by morpheuskafka »

sublinear wrote: post #70
ValdikSS wrote: post #68

>Perhaps I could set them up a Raspberry Pi as a print server? But that would make it not so cheap. And anyway, I’m not convinced they’d go for the extra plugs and wires. $35 and it's yours, with tech support and CUPS/SANE development funding included, and all open source: https://printserver.ink Extra plugs could be eliminated with the help of "IEC320 3 pin C14 TO Male C13+2" cable: https://ae-pic-a1.aliexpress-medi…

> 1 GiB LPDDR4 Wouldn't this be a huge problem trying to print anything with images or more than a page or two (most PDFs for example)?

Most network printers don't have that much right? I remember seeing a few 256MB sticks in those old copiers that served a whole buildings.

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

#87

Post by leptons »

Gigachad wrote: post #82
leptons wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The user gets spammed with a million permissions popups a day and has no idea what they are actually accepting or what the risks are. "A million" is quite the hyperbole. So let's just not do anything anymore because it might cause a permission popup? Or because some idiot might trust a scam website? That's your argument? Sorry, it's not a good argument. >while the webusb spec is exposing you to potentially high risk…

That’s the source of the issue. Apple sells products that are safe for someone’s stupid grandfather. WebUSB is not safe for people who don’t understand the implications. Which is most people. The rest can choose a different browser.

>Apple sells products that are safe for someone’s stupid grandfather.

Then then they should be selling it in "grandfather mode". The rest of the non-stupid people that have iPhones (there are non-stupid people with iPhones, aren't there?) should be able to do what they want with their devices. But they can't because Apple puts profit over progress.

>The rest can choose a different browser.

Except on iOS you can't choose a different browser. Apple has blocked all other browsers on their mobile platform, so if you try to install Chrome, you're really just getting a Safari webview with a wrapper around it. It's just another example of abusive business tactics that the DOJ is suing Apple for.

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

#88

Post by gmac »

zamadatix wrote: post #46
Gabrys1 wrote: post #30

> I must apologise that I haven’t so far open-sourced any part of this that I don’t have to. Mainly that’s because I think this would be an awesomely sticky web property for a printer consumables firm to integrate with their sales site. And I’d much prefer it if they paid me to white-label it for them, rather than just forking a repo and getting it all for free. They might be interested if they cared at all about the…

The hardest part would probably be convincing someone to pay to white label something for which most of the key design choices and implementation came from one unfamiliar dev prompting an £18 Claude Code subscription.

Claude was great, but I did put a fair amount of my own time and (non-printing-specific) expertise into this. OTOH, sure, I wouldn’t be asking for a million dollars.

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

#89

Post by Gigachad »

leptons wrote: post #87
Gigachad wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the source of the issue. Apple sells products that are safe for someone’s stupid grandfather. WebUSB is not safe for people who don’t understand the implications. Which is most people. The rest can choose a different browser.

>Apple sells products that are safe for someone’s stupid grandfather. Then then they should be selling it in "grandfather mode". The rest of the non-stupid people that have iPhones (there are non-stupid people with iPhones, aren't there?) should be able to do what they want with their devices. But they can't because Apple puts profit over progress. >The rest can choose a different browser. Except on iOS you can't cho…

On iOS you can’t use usb anyway. Even an actual app can’t use usb outside of the wrapper APIs for file access and stuff. So it doesn’t really matter what safari supports here. And on macOS you can use any browser you want.

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

#90

Post by Pinus »

SoftTalker wrote: post #9

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?

As for the "who would want that", I think the use case for that kind of printer today is slow logging. With a laser printer that outputs a page at a time, if you log one line per day the power fails after 65 days, you lose the 65 lines that was in its memory. The MX-80 can print a line, or even a character if you poke it in the ribs a bit, at a time, so if the power goes away, your printed lines are still there.
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