Package: nodejs Version: 12.22.5~dfsg-2~11u1 Severity: important X-Debbugs-Cc: jwilliamcampb...@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. 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. 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. 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. -- System Information: Debian Release: 11.1 APT prefers stable-updates APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 5.10.0-9-686 (SMP w/1 CPU thread) Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) LSM: AppArmor: enabled Versions of packages nodejs depends on: ii libc6 2.31-13+deb11u2 iu libnode72 12.22.5~dfsg-2~11u1 Versions of packages nodejs recommends: ii ca-certificates 20210119 ii nodejs-doc 12.22.5~dfsg-2~11u1 Versions of packages nodejs suggests: pn npm <none> -- no debconf information