Show HN: Driverless print server for legacy printers, profit goes to open-source

19 comments

·May 4, 2025

This 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

The printer driver is run inside the device. It comes with lots of open-source and official proprietary drivers. x86-only drivers are running under box86 emulation, with little visible performance impact, ensuring wide compatibility with many printers and MFPs.

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.

Visit

kevinsync

Dot-Ink is a wild TLD and very cool aesthetic choice for this project

purpleidea

Says it's open source but the link is password protected: https://printserver.ink/firmware/

I'll pass until that's normal.

ValdikSS

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.

ummonk

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.

jacob019

You said in the same sentence that the source is open and not freely available.

ValdikSS

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.

null

[deleted]

TMWNN

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.)

ValdikSS

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