Install Node.js 4 on Alpine Linux

Question

I am new to Alpine Linux and I tried to install Node.js 4.

According to this I can specify the version like this:

apk add nodejs=4

I also tried this because I though maybe it doesn't understand semantic versions and I saw here that 4.3.0-r0 seems to be the only available version:

apk add nodejs=4.3.0-r0

Both commands lead to an error:

ERROR: unsatisfiable constraints:
  nodejs-6.2.0-r0:
    breaks: world[nodejs=4.3.0-r0]

What am I doing wrong?

Solution 1

Use this to list available packages:

apk search --update 'node*'

choose one and install it as next:

apk add nodejs-lts --update

(1/4) Installing libgcc (5.3.0-r0)
(2/4) Installing libstdc++ (5.3.0-r0)
(3/4) Installing libuv (1.9.1-r0)
(4/4) Installing nodejs-lts (4.4.4-r0)

Solution 2

Alpine is a rolling release distro. Packages for nodejs are dependent from which version of alpine you are using.

In your example, if you need nodejs-4.3x, you should use Alpine 3.3:

https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages?name=nodejs&branch=&repo=&arch=&maintainer=

This because there is no way yet to install arbitrary an older versions of a package from official repositories.

A possible workaround, if it might be fitting for you, is using an lxc container, where you can specify the alpine version to use, with a small footprint on the host.

Comments

[Eazy]

Alpine is not a rolling release distro. Only edge branch is rolling.

[Eazy]

It’s named nodejs-lts only in v3.4, it’s just nodejs in further versions or nodejs-current for the “current” version (that’s the upstream’s terminology, it’s non-LTS version).