I realize the details of the Prusa Mini are pretty vague at the moment but it seems only Mass Storage is implemented on the USB interface. The Mini does however have an Ethernet port.
My very limited knowledge of Octoprint would seem to suggest that by default Octoprint attaches to the 3d printer via serial emulation on USB. In principle, can Octoprint connect to the 3d printer via Ethernet?
I am aware of Prusa's webinterface but it will be a considerable time (ie never) before it reaches the functionality of Octoprint.
Sorry to be dim, total noob to 3d printing/rational thought/Octoprint, what significance does the ability (if indeed the Mini does) does a rest api have for using Octoprint with a Mini?
I wonder if the performance of ethernet via rest API will be better/worse than USB. I'm thinking about poor wifi signal, etc, which would totally kill a print.
On a similar note, I think it's is a shame that Prusa has chosen to compete, rather than cooperate with our community. Hopefully their source code remains open, but it does seem like they are edging towards the custom and away from the general recently.
Any idea how hard/feasible it would be to get OctoPrint running on their board? Combine it with stock marlin and maybe compete with their own software? I mean, Octoprint users need an alternative, because I will NOT run a 3d printer without Octoprint myself.
In theory, one could write a plugin with a serial factory that shunts everything over Ethernet but then we're trying to enable Prusa-dude to shoot himself in the foot and to survive within this landscape. The natural order of things is for bad decisions to hurt your business model in such a way that you lose sales and if you're smart, reverse that decision later.
I'm pretty sure the Mini is targeted at customers who want to take it out of the box and print something. The more Prusa branded or pretweaked open source software (slicers etc.) that is available the happier that segment of the market (which is hugh) will be.
Personally I'd like to run Octoprint because it's tried and tested, has a whole bunch of great plugins and it's an independent check of the process. But realistically, the "take it out of the box and print something" group would be prioritize convenience over functionality.
Prusa firmware is of course open source but a stock machine will only bootload a signed file. There is a tab which has to broken off to allow unsigned but this voids the warranty. This is all part and parcel of the Mini being sold as a consumer device while maintaining the enthusiast option.
As far as I can see they are using an STM32 processor. Fun little thing that can also run micropython but that's not the same, OctoPrint needs the full python version.
So that will not happen. Writing a sort of driver similar to the GPX plugin might work though, depending on what the API offers. I'm not aware of any kind of documentation for that yet, and regardless of that edit I'd also not do it myself (at this point I'm frankly not even sure I'd let myself get contracted to do so, I found the claim on their product page that their implementation "can do pretty much everything that OctoPrint can do" quite ridiculous and aggressive). See also:
All in all, it's sad to see that this printer is now basically semi locked down & edit possibly proprietary (and not very clear about this to boot) but also not surprising given some past decisions we've seen made.
Edit it has come to my attention that there seems to be some conflicting information floating around now whether the mini is compatible not. My above points however stand should it turn out to be incompatible indeed. I've adjusted the phrasing sightly to properly reflect the current uncertainty.
Edit 2 further adjusted since it looks like it's probably compatible after all