this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2026
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So, if you have it visible via USB at the moment, you can probably have the Arch Linux PC tell you with
lsusb. That'll list all attached devices.But, as to the general problem, if you're fine with using USB other than running short on USB ports, I'd probably try one of two things:
Your USB hub might not support a new enough version of USB. I think that devices are supposed to fall back gracefully, but I definitely have seen the occasional device that does wonky, probably non-standard things with different versions of USB. I have a phone, for example, that will tether using a USB-2-capable cable but not with nicer USB-3-capable cables.
Just put the other USB devices that you're plugging into the computer on the hub, rather than the printer.
That's simple, you know it works already, and it solves the security issue.
If you want to do the WiFi route, that's going to be entirely dependent upon your wireless access point (you likely have an all-in-one "router" that acts as a broadband modem, router, and wireless access point). There isn't going to be a standard way to do this, and I can't even guarantee that the router is going to be capable of it, but if it has a management interface, probably Web-based, it'll likely have some list of devices, probably sorted by DHCP lease or MAC address, that have paired with the WAP. If it's in there, it'll have some option to cut off access, but again...I can't tell you what it'd look like, since it'd depend on the system.
If that doesn't work (like, you can't make your router do that, or you have multiple devices that you want to be able to print to the thing and don't want to keep your PC on), you may be able to take another PC, connect it to the printer (e.g. via USB) and set it up as a print server running CUPS. That way, there's absolutely no way for the printer to reach the network, and you have control of the device serving the printer to the network.
If you definitely want to go the WiFi route and your router cannot block Internet access to a device that it gives an address to, then you may be able to throw the router into "bridge" mode and set up your own router hooked up to it running OpenWRT or something similar, and have that be the wireless access point for your whole network, and have that disallow access to the Internet to that particular device.