Running the Stupid Cricut Software on Linux | Hacker News Reader

Running the Stupid Cricut Software on Linux

arthur.pizza

81 pointsstarkparker19 comments

I was in the market for a vinyl cutter/knife plotter a while back, and the fact I use linux on everything was my main reason for avoiding Cricut. Ended up finding out theres an open source inkscape plugin that interfaces with the silhouette brand of knife plotters.

Not having to use the proprietary jank software is so nice, its a value-add over the cricut just to not have to use their software.

For people like me who might be unfamiliar with the craft of digital cutting of vinyl, felt, and similar materials, here's a good article from the New York Times from a decade ago [1].

It summarizes three brands of machines: Pazzles, in Boisie, Idaho, Cricut from Provo Craft in Spanish Fork, Utah, and Silhouette, from Silhouette America in Lindon, Utah, at that time. I believe Pazzles ceased operation in 2020.

[1] For Crafters, the Gift of Automation, By Peter Wayner, Dec. 2, 2009

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/technology/personaltech/0...

Fascinating that all three are from the depths of the “Morridor”.

I strongly recommend Cameo machines from Silhouette. I don't know if their software runs in Wine on Linux, but they aren't actively hostile to 3rd party software. I usually use the Inkscape-Silhouette extension, but there are others that appear more polished, so I don't know why I don't explore more, but the point is that there are more options on both Linux and other platforms.

I've used mine for vinyl lettering and decals, making stencils from old transparency sheets, and paper craft stuff. Cameo's can also double as pen plotters, for people who want to try getting into that cheaply. For pen plotter use, I don't think there is much difference between the oldest and newest Cameo, except the option to hold 2 pens at once, so get a cheap used one for $50. For actually cutting things, the autoset blade is a nice option that means a used one might be closer to $100.

I'd like to see some talk about alternatives.

I do crafting with an inkjet printer and something like the Cricut would be an interesting addition but I had two problems with it:

(i) the quality of work it does is not terrible but not great -- it's better than somebody who's bad with scissors but worse than somebody who's good with scissors.

(ii) when I was looking at it in 2021 they'd announced they were going to put limits on how many unique designs you could upload in a month, but the abandoned this after outcry: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/18/22338801/cricut-crafting-...

My wife has a Cricut from before they started adding most of the subscription BS. I think it's an Explore Air 2 or something like that.

I have a hard time believing anybody is that good and fast with scissors (or craft knives). I cut out a vinyl iPhone skin last night, for example, and it took about a minute.

Maybe I'm just not tumbling down the correct YouTube rabbit holes, and maybe I just really suck at scissors.

There's fast and there is good.

If I work slowly I can do better that the Cricut, if I work quickly I do worse. Slow detailed work causes more tension in my hands and discomfort. I do most of my cutting now with a rotary cutter which is effortless but I regularly do straight cuts on longer pieces with a straightedge and knife.

If I had the Cricut I'd probably doing projects that involve many more cuts of complex shapes but I wouldn't be sure I'd be 100% proud of the quality.

To elaborate on my point (ii) it's that anti-consumer announcements have a rachet effect: I heard that they were going to crack down on users, I didn't hear that they'd backed down. So they still lost a sale, not from residual anger or my belief that they are of bad character, but because bad news spreads further than good. It's one more reason why brands should think not just twice but twenty times before making obviously self-destructive moves.

Does the Cricut operate as an IoT device, or does it interface directly with a PC?

My understanding is that Wine doesn’t do any drivers or interface with any hardware.

> does it interface directly with a PC?

On the Explore Air 2 I had, you plug it in via USB or talk to it over Bluetooth[0].

[0] https://help.cricut.com/hc/en-us/articles/6581830148759-Blue...

The Cricut maker 3 is USB or Bluetooth. The cricut software is only just usable IMO. Thankfully designs can be done in illustrator and imported as DXF if you're very careful about the workflow.

It depends on how it's implemented. You're correct that Wine can't support kernel-mode drivers, but there are user-mode ways to talk to hardware, too. Wine supports direct user-mode access to USB devices, so if the control software talks to USB by opening the device and directly reading/writing the protocol itself, then it should work just fine.

you can plot & cut without the official software, using slicebug: https://github.com/XtremeCoder007/slicebug it took claude code 20 minutes to get it to run on macos, and he can even make cool designs for you.

have you considered PRing support back to the main project?

Do the people who develop the code want to review a PR by someone who doesn't understand the proposed code does ?

Has the Cricut protocol been reverse engineered already? The primary motivation I had when building respira (controller software for the Brother PP-1 Skitch embroidery machine) was its shitty smartphone-only app. The reverse-engineering of the communication protocol was really doable with LLMs and the decompiled C++/C# code of the app. I can imagine something similar could be done with the Cricut machines.

The tooling is there in Inkscape (same for embroidery via InkStitch). AFAIK Silhouette plotters can be controlled via Inkscape plugins already.

There's a Wiki link in OP that suggests two other pieces of software had added support in the past but were sued by Cricut's org to remove support.

The real take home (as OP is clear about), is don't buy anything from this shitty company, but at least if you already have, and really must use it, you can get their shitty, proprietary, locked down software running on Linux using OPs instructions.

I had always wanted a cutting machine like this, to complement my 3D printers, but I had learned about their plans to charge a subscription to use their software; OPs linked Wiki suggests that was scrapped after backlash; but the damage is done; I'd never buy a thing from them.

Stick with Silhouette. They're at least owned by a bigger proper conglomerate (Graphtec) that doesn't fuck around with stupid bullshit like Cricut is.

As a plus, small Silhouettes provide a hardware and software upgrade path off of the Silhouette Studio to Graphtec's own design package, and then up to Graphtec's own full-size vinyl cutters.

And they have pen-plotter attachments, too!

Thanks for the tip. I'll take a look.

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