I could see the argument that it’s more air gapped this way. Without having physical access to the printer and the Pi, it’d be hard to get any network connection through USB.
Why do that when you could just connect it to the LAN and put it on a separate VLAN?
frezik@midwest.social 4 weeks ago
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 4 weeks ago
Because the built-in networking stack on printers is garbage and having to install drivers on every client sucks.
dan@upvote.au 4 weeks ago
I’ve never had issues with networking or drivers with my Brother printer. I don’t have any Apple devices, but on Windows and Linux I just use the drivers that come with the OS.
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 4 weeks ago
I’ve not had a Brother printer so, can’t say from experience. My Epson Ecotank needed a driver to work. Setting it up on an RPi 3B with a CUPS server took care of it.
areyouevenreal@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Because it’s a lot simpler and avoids the issue of dealing with printer drivers on all your machines.