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

[Jérémy Lal]

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.

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.

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.

Jérémy
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