Unable to install 1.7.* on Raspian (Debian for Raspberry Pi)

Hello,

I use node-usb for a small project on my Raspberry Pi running Raspian. The 1.6 code worked great. With the advent of 1.7, I am seeing installation problems due to node-addon-api and node-gyp.

$ npm i usb@1.7.1 (node:17802) [DEP0022] DeprecationWarning: os.tmpDir() is deprecated. Use os.tmpdir() instead.

node-addon-api@3.0.2 install /home/pi/temp/node_modules/usb/node_modules/node-addon-api node-gyp rebuild

gyp: binding.gyp not found (cwd: /home/pi/temp/node_modules/usb/node_modules/node-addon-api) while trying to load binding.gyp gyp ERR! configure error gyp ERR! stack Error: gyp failed with exit code: 1 gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.onCpExit (/usr/share/node-gyp/lib/configure.js:304:16) gyp ERR! stack at emitTwo (events.js:126:13) gyp ERR! stack at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:214:7) gyp ERR! stack at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (internal/child_process.js:198:12) gyp ERR! System Linux 4.19.66+ gyp ERR! command “/usr/bin/node” “/usr/bin/node-gyp” “rebuild” gyp ERR! cwd /home/pi/temp/node_modules/usb/node_modules/node-addon-api gyp ERR! node -v v8.11.1 gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.4.0 gyp ERR! not ok npm WARN This failure might be due to the use of legacy binary “node” npm WARN For further explanations, please read /usr/share/doc/nodejs/README.Debian

npm ERR! node-addon-api@3.0.2 install: node-gyp rebuild npm ERR! Exit status 1 npm ERR! npm ERR! Failed at the node-addon-api@3.0.2 install script. npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the node-addon-api package, npm ERR! not with npm itself. npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system: npm ERR! node-gyp rebuild npm ERR! You can get their info via: npm ERR! npm owner ls node-addon-api npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! System Linux 4.19.66+ npm ERR! command “/usr/bin/node” “/usr/bin/npm” “i” “–save” “usb@1.7.1” npm ERR! cwd /home/pi/temp npm ERR! node -v v8.11.1 npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.21 npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE npm ERR! npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in: npm ERR! /home/pi/temp/npm-debug.log npm ERR! not ok code 0

The same thing happens for a git clone and npm install. This happens for npm package installations of usb@1.7.0, usb@1.7.1, and usb@testing. usb@1.6.5 can still be installed via npm, and does install correctly.

I do a lot of the development on MacOS. npm i usb@1.7.1 works without issue there, but that appears to be because of a prebuilt binary:

prebuild-install --runtime napi --target 4 --verbose || node-gyp rebuild

prebuild-install info begin Prebuild-install version 5.3.6 prebuild-install info looking for cached prebuild @ /Users/chris/.npm/_prebuilds/a6bd0a-usb-v1.7.1-napi-v4-darwin-x64.tar.gz prebuild-install info found cached prebuild prebuild-install info unpacking @ /Users/chris/.npm/_prebuilds/a6bd0a-usb-v1.7.1-napi-v4-darwin-x64.tar.gz prebuild-install info unpack resolved to /Users/chris/hello/node_modules/usb/build/Release/usb_bindings.node prebuild-install info install Successfully installed prebuilt binary!

Why are we missing binding.gyp for the Raspberry Pi? What is the process to build node-usb?

[EpicVoyage]

After upgrading from Raspbian Stretch (9) to Raspbian Buster (10), I can install node v10 and use node-usb 1.7. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

$ cat /etc/debian_version 10.9

$ node -v v10.24.0

[EpicVoyage]

Okay, that makes sense. I am using an old Raspberry Pi (v1) with an armv6l processor no longer officially supported by node. Let me see what I can do about a software upgrade and I will report back.