On Thu, Aug 25, 2022 at 8:48 AM Stephen Gallagher <[email protected]> wrote:
> tl;dr: I want to drop the Node.js modules and make Node available as > parallel-installable interpreters (with /usr/bin/node managed by the > alternatives subsystem). > > For some time now, I've been looking at ways to improve our Node.js > story to make it more maintainable. Modules seemed like a Good Idea at > the Time™, but it has been difficult to maintain over the years. I'd > like to propose that we abandon Modules as our strategy and instead > move to parallel-installable packages. I've been quietly working on a > proof-of-concept for this for a while now and it's finally in > good-enough shape[1] that I can share it with you. > > The change involves several key pieces: > > 1. The NPM package is no longer delivered as a subpackage of Node.js. > We return to maintaining it as a separate package in Fedora.[2] > 2. We ship the Node.js interpreter as `/usr/bin/node-$MAJOR` and use > the alternatives[3] subsystem to maintain the `/usr/bin/node` symlink. > 3. We configure the alternatives priority system such that newer > versions of Node are preferred, with the exception of the version > selected as the default for that Fedora release which will always be > preferred over any other, if multiple versions are installed. > > Some examples: > On Fedora 37, the `nodejs` package is not installed (F37's default Node is > v18). > A `dnf install nodejs` would result in the `nodejs18` package being > installed. This package would provide `/usr/bin/node `as a symlink to > `/usr/bin/node-18`. A user could also `dnf install nodejs16`, which > would provide the `/usr/bin/node-16` binary. This would not change the > symlink for `/usr/bin/node`. > > On Fedora 37, the `nodejs` package is not installed (F37's default Node is > v18). > A `dnf install nodejs16` would result in the `nodejs16` package being > installed. This package would provide `/usr/bin/node` as a symlink to > `/usr/bin/node-16`. A user could also install `nodejs-18`, which > would provide the `/usr/bin/node-18` binary. Because Node.js v18 is > the default for Fedora 37, this would result in the `/usr/bin/node` > symlink being changed to point at `/usr/bin/node-18`. > > On Fedora 37, the existing `nodejs` package is installed (F37's > default Node is v18). > A `dnf upgrade` would result in the `nodejs-18` package being > installed, replacing `nodejs`. This package would provide > `/usr/bin/node `as a symlink to `/usr/bin/node-18`. A user could also > install `nodejs-16`, which would provide the `/usr/bin/node-16` > binary. This would not change the symlink for `/usr/bin/node`. > > > > Some benefits to this approach: > * With parallel-install, it becomes possible to run test suites > against multiple major versions at the same time. For example, the NPM > package will be able[4] to run its suite against v16 and v18 to ensure > that it is compatible with both versions. > * The complexities of the Module build would go away. > > Some risks to this approach: > * If Node.js dependencies like libuv or libnghttp2 make incompatible > changes that cannot work with both older and newer Node.js releases, > we will need to create compat- packages for them. > > > > [1] https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/sgallagh/nodejs-alternatives/ > [2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2075170 > [3] > https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/Alternatives/ > [4] > https://download.copr.fedorainfracloud.org/results/sgallagh/nodejs-alternatives/fedora-37-x86_64/04759584-npm/npm.spec > You've already answered everything I was going to ask about this. I just want to say I like this plan. Troy
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