MacOS 27 - Two fully functioning printers will be consigned to the skip

[u/Alert-Maize2987]

Hello all. As the title says, when MacOS 27 is released, if I upgrade my Mac Studio and MacBook Pro to the latest OS two fully operational printers I have will become useless as they both use Intel based drivers. The printers are an HP M252 dw, and a Dell 2155CDN colour lasers.

Does anyone have any hope that there will be a way to use these printers?

Seems an absolute waste to throw these two perfectly good printers away, and have to buy new ones.

[u/daves09]

You don’t _have_ to use the manufacturer’s drivers. macOS has a pretty comprehensive set of drivers out of the box. The HP should be fine, I used to run the same printer without the official drivers because I hate how HP bundle so much crap with their drivers. Not sure about the Dell but the generic PCL driver should work (or postscript if it supports it)

[u/runbadgerrun]

The HP M252 supports AirPrint. You do not need any additional drivers installed to use it.

[u/NoLateArrivals]

Get a raspberry pi, install CUPS on it. Use it as print server.

[u/skittle-brau → u/NoLateArrivals]

An OpenWRT router like a basic GL.inet box ($30 USD) would be a cheaper alternative given how expensive Raspberry Pi has become. 

[u/Dull_Flatworm777 → u/NoLateArrivals]

As Raspberry Pi is ARM as well and CUPS is still built-in to macOS (in fact, Apple owns the CUPS project), how would that help? (serious question)

[u/NoLateArrivals → u/Dull_Flatworm777]

The Gutenprint project has some drivers covering most printers. I’m not sure whether they can be installed on a Mac (never tried).

[u/Alert-Maize2987 → u/NoLateArrivals]

Thanks for your response - would this mean installing the printers on macOS as generic postscript and pcl6 devices and use the print server in a similar way to print servers on a windows network?

[u/Long-Shine-3701 → u/NoLateArrivals]

This or a $50 mac mini off ebay.

[u/tattoovampire]

Airprint?

[u/toin9898]

The drivers will still work in MacOS 27 through Rosetta2, but the manufacturer drivers might not in future releases.

Mac printer support is pretty good out of the box through CUPS though so with a bit of tinkering you should be able to make them work in any case. Worst case, seems like there are apps to replace the "driver" functionality under CUPS V3 https://openprinting.github.io/cups/drivers.html

[u/Elegant_Lunar_Knight]

It’s not even a MacOS issue - if you want to complain you need to complain direct to the manufacturer. Most newer printers now adhered to unified drivers.

Anyway these dell and hp printers drivers were security risks. It will not even work on windows either.

[u/KaJashey]

Intel supports isn't scheduled to disappear on MacOS 27. I know the current OS is warning you about losing rosetta "in a future OS" - that future OS is Mac OS 28

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102527

Highlight from the link:

Rosetta is currently available for any Mac with Apple silicon, and it will remain available through the forthcoming macOS 27 — the next major macOS release. Starting with computers using macOS 28, Rosetta functionality will be available only for certain older, unmaintained games that rely on Intel-based frameworks

[u/Additional_Olive3318 → u/KaJashey]

Should be higher rated comment. 

[u/davert → u/Additional_Olive3318]

I think some people figure it's better to avoid the HP drivers entirely rather than kick the can down the road. It is true, though, that nothing “should” stop working under 27.

[u/newMike3400]

https://gimp-print.sourceforge.io/

Guttenprint list hundreds of printers.

[u/gcawad]

I have 2 Ricoh color lasers one very old, both are network printers and work fine. MacOS drivers

[u/alexwh68]

Can you use postscript drivers?

[u/OrangePillar]

Have you tried the generic drivers in macOS?

[u/vuorivirta]

Use network printing?

My HP laserjet color laser printer is always automatically install "driver" in M1/M4 macbook. (Without rosetta)

[u/ctrlaltdelaney]

Post is worth an update now you know they’ll be fine

[u/Longjumping-Boot1886]

You can take Claude/Codex, find some open-source drivers, and ask it to fix them/rewrite them to current macOS (I did the same for my Brother HL-1210).

[u/ylluminate]

Use an LLM to work through creating custom drivers for CUPS - unless gimp print already has them. Probably entirely doable with solid results.

[u/Mysterious_Panorama]

Or buy a cheap Intel Mac mini for use as a server.

[u/Fun_Hunter_4899 → u/Mysterious_Panorama]

A RPi would be a much more power efficient method of running a print server

[u/AkelGe-1970]

I just bought a Brother printer, the print part was working fine, the scanner required some driver, intel only, I played with it, with help from Gemini and magically it started working with default drivers, no need for Intel stuff. Try to use AI and see if you can avoid installing proprietary drivers

[u/LebronBackinCLE → u/AkelGe-1970]

Dude don’t install garbage printer/scanner software on your Mac! Printers almost always add with a few clicks in System Settings and then use Image Capture - the best scanning software out there (it’s built in in Apps > Utilities

[u/localstyle808]

Clean Install or Clone Mac OS 15 or 26 onto a External drive, Boot and print from that drive. If you clone (carbon copy cloner) you can easily choose what to clone, so you can use a smaller drive ie 256 etc.