Upgrade That Old Wired Printer

This one's for my father, who has an old wired Brother printer/copier.

Do you have a printer at home that works great, but requires a USB cable to print? Me too. My wife Kristin has a fantastic Brother printer from college — fast and quite the workhorse. But we often print from phones, tablets, and in our house, non-Windows machines.

The solution is an open-source program called CUPS (Common Unix Printing System). This can be done on almost any machine, but I chose to use my Ubuntu PC. There are some variations if you're on Windows.

This is a smaller project and pretty easy.

Install and Set Up CUPS

Install CUPS:

sudo apt-get install cups

Now configure it through the web interface:

1. Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:631 in a browser
2. Go to the Administration tab
3. Click Add a Printer
4. Select your printer
5. Fill out the fields and enable Share This Printer, then click Continue
6. Select your print driver — this may take a few attempts. For my Brother HL-2140, I used Brother HL-2140 Foomatic/hl1250

Add to Google Cloud Print

⚠️ Note: Google Cloud Print was shut down on January 1, 2021. The steps below are kept for historical reference only.

A modern alternative is CUPS + AirPrint, which allows printing from iPhones and iPads without any additional software. For Android and cross-platform sharing, Nextcloud or simply sharing the CUPS printer over your local network works well.

Once it's tested, open Google Chrome (or Chromium) and:

1. Navigate to chrome://devices/ in the address bar
2. Select "Classic printer"
3. Add printers
4. Manage printers
5. Select the printer you want to add

Once added, manage it at https://www.google.com/cloudprint/ and share it with anyone who has a Google account.

Takeaways and Future Thoughts

Unexpected problems: Finding the correct print driver was a pain. I had to dig pretty deep to figure out what to use, but eventually found it.

Future concerns: Just need to make sure my PC is powered on whenever I want to print.

Future enhancements: CUPS is currently installed on my PC, but I may move it to a Raspberry Pi. The Pi uses less power and would let the printer become truly wireless — meaning it could be placed anywhere in the house.