[Question] Installing Brother linux drivers

[LouisR4]

Hi im having issues installing the brother linux drivers for my MFC-J430W multi-function printer on Debian 10 amd64.... the drivers: https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloa ... all&os=128 forewarning: "installing these require manual removing unless you know how to fix broken stuff don't install"
installing using the driver install tool/script (tried the individual .deb's same end result.) first it complains about ia32-libs dependencies can't be installed/resolved but it continues anyway..?? once the tool does its thing (supposed to install the stuff for the printer) dpkg and apt complain that two of the packages (mfcj430wlpr-3.0.1-1.i386 & brscan4) installed from this need to be reinstalled due to being in a "unstable state" (yes i know one package is i386 but that's all that's provided) however its impossible as it reinstalling cause the same issue and attempting to remove via apt or dpkg result in saying the packages are in a "unstable state" and really should be reinstalled before removing.. even using --force command causes dpkg to state the same thing so i was hoping someone an expert maybe? help me figure out (or debug) how to install or fix these so i can install and use these.. or find out why these are not working correctly.

[FreewheelinFrank]

Brother drivers are 32 bit (as are drivers from other manufacturers, I believe). ia32-libs is no longer in Debian since Multiarch (it's not needed). The brother script mentions ia32-libs but ignores it, then installs some 32 bit libraries before installing the Brother drivers. This an extract from the output from mine:

Code: Select all

E: Package 'ia32-libs' has no installation candidate
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  lib32gcc-s1 libc6-i386
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  lib32gcc-s1 lib32stdc++6 libc6-i386
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
Need to get 3,378 kB of archives.
After this operation, 15.7 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 libc6-i386 amd64 2.31-9 [2,819 kB]
Get:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 lib32gcc-s1 amd64 10.2.1-3 [49.4 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main amd64 lib32stdc++6 amd64 10.2.1-3 [510 kB]
Fetched 3,378 kB in 4s (763 kB/s) 

Did these libraries get installed?

It would be more useful if you could post the actual output of the script to see what errors there are.

[brian_p]

Brother drivers are not required. See

https://wiki.debian.org/CUPSQuickPrintQueues

Install sane-airscan for scanning.

[FreewheelinFrank]

Unless you have a bottom-end model like mine.

[brian_p]

LouisR4 has a modern device (MFC-J430W) that is fully supported on Debian
without the Brother drivers from buster onwards. Your model is unknown.

[FreewheelinFrank]

Yes, indeed. I shall endeavour to recall that drivers are no longer required in modern devices next time.