What Node version is your Linux distribution giving you?

[Brian Sturgill]

> ...
>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.
>...

The problem is that version 12 is REALLY old.  Most non-Debian versions
(Fedora/Centos/Redhat, Gentoo, Arch) are on version 16 or 18.
Even FreeBSD is on 16.
(The even numbers are LTS versions - thus you'll see more of them than the
odd ones..)
Wow, I never thought I'd leave Debian-based systems, but I really should
consider it.

There are significant reasons why a package like JSCAD would want to move
on from 12.
One problem here is that the web world is faster paced than the Linux world.

Brian


On Tue, Aug 23, 2022 at 8:04 PM Bob Proulx <bob at proulx.com> wrote:

> 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
>


-- 
Brian Sturgill
President and CTO
Ataman Software, Inc.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.nclug.org/pipermail/nclug/attachments/20220824/aedc99f0/attachment-0001.htm>