What Node version is your Linux distribution giving you?

[Bob Proulx]

Brian Sturgill wrote:
> I ask because JSCAD announced they were no longer supporting Node 12.
> They basically support only those version of Node that the Node.js people
> support.

Ah...  So that tells me that they don't care about users and stable
releases.  They want users to skate the bleeding edge.  Do they supply
band-aids?

> (Nodejs LTS is on a 30 month support cycle.)
> Looking at my installed version (which I thought might be 12) I find it is
> 12.22.9.
> Now strangely, I'm running the latest release of Ubuntu. It's end of life
> is April 2027.

Similarly here.

> So, yet another Ubuntu problem.
> Why is Ubuntu so behind?

Ubuntu, Debian (and the downstreams Devuan, Mint, Trisquel) strike a
software freeze and package up the best version available at the time
that they freeze.  They might jiggle things around if that makes the
most sense.  But for example Ubuntu 22.04 is April 2022.  That's where
the number comes from.  Whatever is best on the date of 2022-04 is
frozen and then that is what they ship.  And the even years are LTS by
definition so those versions are supported for their long term support.

> I'm curious, what are the default node versions on other distributions?
> (node -v)

That would require me to install it.  I don't use anything that uses
nodejs.  But I can report what versions are in Debian/Devuan and Ubuntu.

    https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=nodejs

    stretch (oldoldstable) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript
        4.8.2~dfsg-1: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
    stretch-backports (javascript): evented I/O for V8 javascript
        8.11.1~dfsg-2~bpo9+1: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
    buster (oldstable) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable
        10.24.0~dfsg-1~deb10u1: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
    bullseye (stable) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable
        12.22.5~dfsg-2~11u1: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
    bookworm (testing) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable
        18.7.0+dfsg-1: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el s390x
    sid (unstable) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable
        18.7.0+dfsg-1: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips64el mipsel ppc64el riscv64 s390x
        16.14.2+dfsg1-1 [debports]: ppc64

    https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=nodejs&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all

    bionic (18.04LTS) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript [universe]
        8.10.0~dfsg-2ubuntu0.2 [security]: amd64 i386
        8.10.0~dfsg-2 [ports]: arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x
    bionic-updates (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript [universe]
        8.10.0~dfsg-2ubuntu0.4: amd64 arm64 armhf i386 ppc64el s390x
    focal (20.04LTS) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable [universe]
        10.19.0~dfsg-3ubuntu1: amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x
    also provided by: node-pegjs
    impish (21.10) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable [universe]
        12.22.5~dfsg-5ubuntu1: amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x
    jammy (22.04LTS) (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable [universe]
        12.22.9~dfsg-1ubuntu3: amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x
    kinetic (web): evented I/O for V8 javascript - runtime executable [universe]
        16.14.2+dfsg1-1ubuntu3: amd64 arm64 armhf ppc64el s390x

I don't use node.js and am not following the development so I have no
comment on why whichever version was packaged and which were not.  But
Unstable usually has the latest version and whatever is in Unstable
flows into Testing which gets released as Stable.  I am looking at the
node.js release history.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js

I have no idea why node.js version 16 was not released with 22.04
because by the timeline that seems like it would have been.  Therefore
without knowing anything I will assume there was some problem that
blocked it.  Perhaps a release critical bug?  Which might mean a
license dispute, or a build failure, or any of other RC problems that
would have prevented it.  No idea.

HTH!
Bob