Reviving old scanners with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

hckrnws

Reviving old scanners with an in-browser Linux VM bridged to WebUSB over USB/IP

(yes-we-scan.app)

126

by gmac

ValdikSS
113d
It's a great concept, but you haven't open-sourced the previous code, as the license requires, and you're yet again apologizing in this project as well, without any code.
Pretty sure you have my code in both projects. I contribute first and foremost to make printers and scanners to work reliably, but also keeping in mind the idea that I could at least try to apply legal actions for companies which violate the license rules one day, as a CUPS/SANE/printer/scanner drivers contributor.
Printer companies generally don't like that: https://xcancel.com/ValdikSS/status/1745898408693371125#m
Cool project though! Hope you can publish the source one day so we can all benefit from it in the future!
1. gmac • OP
  62d
  If you think I’ve done something wrong according to the licences involved here, please do clarify. I had understood that open-sourcing the Linux stuff (as branches of a fork of v86, linked from the /credits page) met all relevant legal obligations, which I absolutely intend to do.
  More broadly, it’s unusual for me not to make everything open, and I do feel bad/conflicted about it. But, unusually, I feel like I have identified a possible route to monetising this, and I think open-sourcing all of it risks making that harder.
  1. ValdikSS
    12d
    Sorry, it's me who needs a reading comprehension lessons. I've read back in printervention website and now again that you didn't open the code that you HAVE to. Because you're apologizing for that, I assumed that you're breaking the license, twice.
    After rereading both of your websites again, I should say you've nothing wrong! It's sleepy me who accused you for nothing, sorry.
    Linux printing and scanning stack is held on 5 enthusiasts basically, and is quite buggy. Any contributions welcome.
    If you want to further improve your project, make it small and fast, you can compile printer filters (most of which work on cups-raster data) with emscripten. This way you don't need to use CUPS, Linux, and x86 emulation. You'll need to write some shims for CUPS libppd functions which many filters use (some don't), and either parse PPD files or convert them into another representation.
    Most filters (drivers) are quite simple pipes from stdin to stdout, sometimes they don't use cups functions at all, receiving all the data directly from raster header. Some filters, such as gutenprint, are more complex and use their own backends, but even in this case it's not a hard task: libusb has emscripten WebUSB backend.
2. ironhaven
  22d
  If you just install CUPS in a virtual machine (emulated in wasm on the web) what patches do you need to share?
  1. ValdikSS
    02d
    See above, that's my mistake.
3. itsthecourier
  02d
  hope we see that code soon
IdiotSavage
02d
With AirSane [1], you can make scanners integrate nicely with macOS. This page [2] has a writeup (in German) how to set it up on a RaspberryPi. On non-macOS devices you can still use the web interface, as demonstrated by the "yes-we-scan" app.
[1] https://github.com/SimulPiscator/AirSane
[2] https://archive.ph/1D2EQ
jdub
72d
Hrm, yes-we-scan and printervention are built on SANE and CUPS respectively, which makes sense. But running them in a whole wasm-emulated Linux kernel and userland seems... like a lot.
1. jdub
  12d
  Oh, and:
  > I must apologise that I haven’t so far open-sourced any part of this that I don’t have to.
  With some blather about commercial opportunities. Which is a weird thing to say without linking to the bits that must be shared (under the terms of the various licenses).
winkelmann
12d
FYI, if the goal is just to use something like an old Canon LiDE scanner (pretty common/cheap devices with no more driver support) on macOS: SANE runs natively and works great: https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/sane-backends (comes with `scanimage` CLI tool).
1. gmac • OP
  02d
  That is super helpful (I may well use it myself). But I guess a web app probably reaches some non-technical users that CLI tools don't.
raffraffraff
02d
I used a raspberry pi 3b+ and an ancient ipad to turn my Canon A3 scanner into a network scanner with an LCD interface (which also just points to the phpscan web page). I tuned to html / js / css to fit the ipad perfectly and only show options that worked with my specific scanner.
hommelix
02d
Sane works out of the box on Linux (at least in my limited experience). There are front ends for Windows and MacOS [1]. No need for a browser in the loop. The browser is becoming more and more Emacs... An operating system that happens to be a browser.
[1] http://sane-project.org/sane-frontends.html
ocdtrekkie
02d
I don't want this enough to subject myself to WebUSB, but I am particularly fond of a no-longer-supported flatbed scanner I own which powers entirely off the USB port. It was super handy if you wanted to scan to like a tablet in a car or something, as long as you had a USB-A port to work with.
Aloha
03d
I could also just go buy VueScan, which is cross platform and great.
brnt
02d
I've plugged in many a scanner (or printer) into my Linux machines, and they always just werk. Which this project probably makes use of: SANE. I think there's even a project porting SANE to Windows (because that's I guess what this is aimed at: scanners that never got a WHQL driver).
keepamovin
02d
Such a cool project. I love seeing what the web platform can do and particularly like the hardware integration capabilities of these type of APIs. I remember playing with a Web USB ADS-B scanner that plugs into your SDR.
Interestingly, it was better executed than many of the downloadable native apps.
hard_times
02d
The idea of emulating a lightweight Alpine Linux in the browser to make this work, without overengineering don't-know-what custom niche solution is definitely intriguing.
I wonder how much work would it be to port a given Linux USB driver to WASM alone?
butz
02d
Overengineering aside (which is pretty legitimate way of doing hobby tech), why not build SANE on WASM? And maybe interfacing with airplay scanners could be even easier?
erasmoss
02d
Reminds me of building a tiny Linux VM to access the APFS share of our Mac-centric uni from Windows. Other students just got a MacBook..
BarbaryCoast
016h
Uh, what do you mean, you can't use a scanner via USB? Did they stop putting USB ports on computers? (I haven't bought a new one in a while.) Or does your OS not provide the software to connect to it?
I guess I just don't understand what problem this solves.
DeathArrow
02d
Can this be made into a generic support app for old devices, not just scanners?
indianbunghole
02d
[dead]
brudgers
04d
The ShowHN a few days ago, https://yes-we-scan.app/