How to install nodejs?

[nophead]

Forgive my ignorance but the RPI0 in your pictures seems to an RPI0 W, which is arm6l. Nodejs version 12 seems to the last to support arm6l. https://github.com/orgs/nodejs/discussions/38496.

The default version on Raspbian seems to be v12.22.12 but npm -i wants version 14 or 16 for some libraries.

npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: 'cspell-grammar@6.31.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '>=14' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v12.22.12', npm: '7.5.2' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }

[cinderblock]

Great question. Yeah, I'm not sure why Node doesn't publish builds for ARMv6 anymore, although many other apps do as well. Fortunately the Zero 2 is a newer ARM that is supported so going forward this won't be needed, but I digress...

You'll need to either compile Node.js yourself or download a precompiled binary that does support ARMv6. Fortunately, there are "unofficial" builds that are available that just work.

I wrote a whole script to build Pi images and included a feature to install Node for ARMv6.

Or you can just run these commands on your Pi Zero:

VERSION=$(curl -s https://unofficial-builds.nodejs.org/download/release/index.tab | tail -n+2                    | head -n1 | cut -f1) # Latest
VERSION=$(curl -s https://unofficial-builds.nodejs.org/download/release/index.tab | tail -n+2 | awk '$10!="-"' - | head -n1 | cut -f1) # LTS
URL=https://unofficial-builds.nodejs.org/download/release/${VERSION}/node-${VERSION}-linux-armv6l.tar.xz
curl "${URL}" | sudo tar xJ -C /usr/local --strip-components=1

---

I should add that this project is really in a skeleton state. Not much really works yet.

[nophead]

Thanks, that enabled me to install Node.js and it seems to be working. However, when I run npm i in the toaster directory I get the following error:

pi@T-962:~/toaster $ npm i
npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path /home/pi/toaster/node_modules/node
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command sh -c node installArchSpecificPackage
npm ERR! npm ERR! code E404
npm ERR! npm ERR! 404 Not Found - GET https://registry.npmjs.org/node-linux-arm - Not found
npm ERR! npm ERR! 404
npm ERR! npm ERR! 404  'node-linux-arm@19.8.1' is not in this registry.
npm ERR! npm ERR! 404
npm ERR! npm ERR! 404 Note that you can also install from a
npm ERR! npm ERR! 404 tarball, folder, http url, or git url.
npm ERR!
npm ERR! npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in: /home/pi/.npm/_logs/2023-10-10T16_13_29_005Z-debug-0.log
npm ERR! node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1051
npm ERR!   throw err;
npm ERR!   ^
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Error: Cannot find module 'node-linux-arm/package.json'
npm ERR! Require stack:
npm ERR! - /home/pi/toaster/node_modules/node/installArchSpecificPackage.js
npm ERR!     at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1048:15)
npm ERR!     at Function.resolve (node:internal/modules/helpers:136:19)
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/home/pi/toaster/node_modules/node-bin-setup/index.js:19:27)
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:514:28)
npm ERR!     at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1105:16)
npm ERR!     at ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:305:5) {
npm ERR!   code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
npm ERR!   requireStack: [
npm ERR!     '/home/pi/toaster/node_modules/node/installArchSpecificPackage.js'
npm ERR!   ]
npm ERR! }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Node.js v20.8.0

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in: /home/pi/.npm/_logs/2023-10-10T16_09_03_288Z-debug-0.log

[nophead]

Looks like the registry path should be https://registry.npmjs.org/node-linux-armv6l but I don't know where it comes from.