[REQUEST] CUPS server with complete driver base

Many cannot use their PI boards as a print server because there’s no ARM drivers for their printers. Example: Canon CAPT drivers, Dell, Xerox and many more…

Workaround is to run x86 CUPS on ARM machine in a Docker via Qemu.

Here’s an arch-linux successful example: https://blog.project-insanity.org/2020/05/19/cups-airprint-server-with-legacy-printer-driver-support/

It requires a use of experimental features of Docker, but does the job. With your expertise, guys, thousands of abandoned printers can become networked!

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Whilst I can understand why you might want this, indeed I did play around with a CUPS server myself in docker a few years ago, I am fairly confident that none of the team will want to take this project on.

Printers in general are fickle, mysterious beasts that are the bane of many an IT existence, trying to support a random hodge podge of abandoned printers sounds, quite frankly, like something that nightmares are made of.

We have to be mindful of what we can reasonably support and I think this would be unsupportable on a wide scale, although I can see how an individual might want to follow that blog post to get their specific printer working.

Agree. In my case, it’s a matter of running x86 CUPS on ARM, because x86 proprietary driver for my printer is available.

How would you run x86 software on arm?

Via Qemu and Docker’s experimental features.

+1 on CUPS image.

I don’t believe anyone within the team uses CUPS so I don’t think there is any interest in developing a container for this unfortunately.