Raspberry PI and old node versions

[SheetJSDev]

The following errors occurred when installing old node versions (simple nvm install $VERSION) on an RPi4 with the default Raspbian flavor of Linux:

• [ ] 0.12 (nvm tries v0.12.18)
• [ ] 0.8 (nvm tries v0.8.28 -- same error but different line numbers)

$>./configure --prefix=/home/pi/.nvm/versions/node/v0.12.18 --without-snapshot<
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./configure", line 1009, in <module>
    configure_node(output)
  File "./configure", line 539, in configure_node
    o['variables']['gcc_version'] = 10 * cc_version[0] + cc_version[1]
IndexError: tuple index out of range

• [ ] 0.6 (nvm tries v0.6.21)

/usr/bin/g++ -o obj/release/accessors.o -c -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -Wall -W -Wno-unused-parameter -Wnon-virtual-dtor -Wno-abi -pedantic -mfloat-abi=softfp -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -fdata-sections -ffunction-sections -ansi -DCAN_USE_VFP_INSTRUCTIONS -DUSE_EABI_HARDFLOAT=0 -DV8_TARGET_ARCH_ARM -DENABLE_DEBUGGER_SUPPORT -I/home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/deps/v8/src /home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/deps/v8/src/accessors.cc
In file included from /usr/include/features.h:448,
                 from /usr/include/arm-linux-gnueabihf/bits/libc-header-start.h:33,
                 from /usr/include/stdio.h:27,
                 from /home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/deps/v8/src/../include/v8stdint.h:33,
                 from /home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/deps/v8/src/../include/v8.h:41,
                 from /home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/deps/v8/src/v8.h:52,
                 from /home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/deps/v8/src/accessors.cc:28:
/usr/include/arm-linux-gnueabihf/gnu/stubs.h:7:11: fatal error: gnu/stubs-soft.h: No such file or directory
 # include <gnu/stubs-soft.h>
           ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
scons: *** [obj/release/accessors.o] Error 1
scons: building terminated because of errors.
Waf: Leaving directory `/home/pi/.nvm/.cache/src/node-v0.6.21/files/out'
Build failed:  -> task failed (err #2): 
        {task: libv8.a SConstruct -> libv8.a}

[ljharb]

If any additional install parameters are found to fix it, I'd be more than happy to add them to nvm so it can automate them.

[SheetJSDev]

The 0.8 and 0.12 errors stem from a cc invocation whose meaning has changed:

• 0.12: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/v0.12/configure#L483
• 0.8: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/v0.8.28/configure#L330

Older gcc versions used to print semver with the -dumpversion flag. Now -dumpversion prints major version and -dumpfullversion prints semver, so ideally nvm would run -dumpversion and somehow intercept and rewrite the call.

[BenMake]

Is there any way to fix this now?

[ljharb]

@BenMake since the issue is still open, you can assume there’s not.

[Burnsedia]

@BenMake I take a creak at it.

[tabletenniser]

Encountered the same issue trying to install node 12 on RPi4, any way to work around this?