[Pkg-javascript-devel] Bug#1002035: nodejs: sse2-support failure leaves dependencies in apt that cannot be met

[Jérémy Lal]

Le lun. 20 déc. 2021 à 21:11, J. William Campbell <
jwilliamcampbell at comcast.net> a écrit :

> Hi Jérémy,
>        Thank you for your very prompt reply. I will reply in line to your
> responses.
>
> On 12/20/2021 11:14 AM, Jérémy Lal wrote:
>
> hello,
>
> NB: i am going to reply below, in chronological order.
> Please adopt the same style in future emails.
>
> Le lun. 20 déc. 2021 à 19:48, J. William Campbell <
> jwilliamcampbell at comcast.net> a écrit :
>
>> Package: nodejs
>> Version: 12.22.5~dfsg-2~11u1
>> Severity: important
>> X-Debbugs-Cc: jwilliamcampbell at comcast.net
>>
>> Dear Maintainer,
>>
>> I attempted to install package nodejs on an Intel processor that does not
>> support sse2 instructions. The library dependencies for nodejs require
>> the sse2 support. It is unclear to me why nodejs itself would require
>> such support, but in any case installing nodejs requires package
>> sse2-support, which will always fail to install on older CPUs. This in
>> itself, while disappointing, isn't a problem.
>
>
> Indeed, nodejs embeds another software (v8) that needs a lot of
> work for each architecture. Authors of v8 decided to simplify their
> work by supporting only a subset of available processors.
>
> To make sure, you can double-check that nodejs as distributed by
> their authors, does indeed *not* run on your system, by trying their
> own debian package, see instructions at:
> https://github.com/nodesource/distributions
>
> However, this failure occurs
>> fairly deep in the installation of packages. The result a package with
>> dependencies that cannot be statisfied. --fix-broken is of course unable
>> to
>> do so, because sse2-support will never install.
>>
>
> Yes, you cannot install sse2-support  on a system that doesn't support
> sse2.
> This is by design.
>
> Indeed it is by design. However, that design has serious drawbacks 😁.
>
>
> I now have a broken apt configuration that I have been unable to fix. I
>> cannot remove/purge nodejs because of the unmet dependencies and I
>> cannot meet them because the required package will not ever install.
>>
>
> I'm not sure that you have a problem with nodejs debian package here.
> It looks, from the description of your problem, that you don't know how to
> deal with apt in that case.
> You should seek some help on that front.
>
> I have, at least in so far as lots of Google searches. Basically, I have
> got nowhere. The "normal" way to correct missing dependencies is to find a
> package that satisfies those dependencies and install it. This approach
> works even when your intention is to subsequently purge the package that
> caused the problem in the first place, but ONLY if you find and install
> such a package. Since sse2-support is designed to not install in this case,
> you can't ever do so. There are lots of attempts to solve similar problems
> by various combinations of approaches. None of them seem to work in this
> case. If you have a pointer to a method that will reliably remove packages
> with unmet dependencies, I would appreciate it.
>
>
> This is a serious annoyance. The package sse2-support is present only to
>> cause the install of the package to fail. It provides no code. A possible
>> fix would be to allow the user to force sse2-support to install in order
>> to
>> satisfy the dependencies so that the package nodejs will not be broken.
>> The user can then remove nodejs or go ahead with the understanding that if
>> sse2 instructions in the library are actually used a fault will occur. The
>> documentation does not warn that nodejs requires sse2-support, but even
>> if it did it is probable this fact would be unclear to many users.
>>
>> What I expected is that nodejs would install without problems, and that
>> if it did not it would not leave the package management on my Debian
>> system basically inoperative. That is where I am now, and I have been
>> unable
>> to find a solution.
>>
>
> I repeat here: on a i686 non-sse2 platform, you can't install nodejs.
> However, i hear you, there should be a more explicit way of failing
> installation
> of a package that is not available for a given processor.
>
> Indeed. Right now sse2-support pops up a failure screen informing you that
> your processor doesn't support the required instructions and returns an
> error code indicating the package was not installed. IMHO a better approach
> would be to throw the error but allow the user to proceed anyway (return a
> "success" code) by responding to a prompt. The user has been told the
> software won't work, so he has no right to expect it will. However, if the
> package is installed one can remove nodejs without problems. I understand
> that it might be real hard to "walk back" all the things that were already
> installed before the problem was detected. For that reason, a "work around"
> would be appropriate.
>

Now i think the problem you see comes from sse2-support package.
That bad a user experience is probably a bug somewhere.
Let's see what their maintainer think about it (cc-ing them).

Jérémy
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