Installing argdown-cli 0.9.0 fails under Linux because of sharp.node module

[christianvoigt]

Installing argdown-cli 0.9.0 fails under Linux because of sharp.node module

[xylomorph]

Yes, I will help Eugen!

What regards your question: It seems I have a prebuild version my system (Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS). npx says

sebastian@sebastian-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-3rd:~/tmp/can-be-deleted/argdown$  npx [email protected] -f png --density=300 --width=3000 --height=3000  ./farbentest.argdown 
info sharp Downloading https://github.com/lovell/sharp-libvips/releases/download/v8.6.1/libvips-8.6.1-linux-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info begin Prebuild-install version 2.5.1
prebuild-install info looking for local prebuild @ prebuilds/sharp-v0.20.1-node-v59-linux-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info looking for cached prebuild @ /home/sebastian/.npm/_prebuilds/https-github.com-lovell-sharp-releases-download-v0.20.1-sharp-v0.20.1-node-v59-linux-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info found cached prebuild 
prebuild-install info unpacking @ /home/sebastian/.npm/_prebuilds/https-github.com-lovell-sharp-releases-download-v0.20.1-sharp-v0.20.1-node-v59-linux-x64.tar.gz
prebuild-install info unpack resolved to /home/sebastian/.npm/_npx/7275/lib/node_modules/argdown-cli/node_modules/sharp/build/Release/sharp.node
prebuild-install info unpack required /home/sebastian/.npm/_npx/7275/lib/node_modules/argdown-cli/node_modules/sharp/build/Release/sharp.node successfully
prebuild-install info install Successfully installed prebuilt binary!

Though, no idea what can be inferred about most Linux users...

[christianvoigt]

Sharp normally uses prebuilt binaries. In some cases it can not provide these binaries and tries to build a new one during installation. For this, a proper build environment is needed. See http://sharp.pixelplumbing.com/en/stable/install/#prerequisites

Sharp will be built from source at install time when:

• a globally-installed libvips is detected,
• pre-compiled binaries do not exist for the current platform and Node version, or
• when the npm install --build-from-source flag is used.

So my guess is that Eugen is using a linux distribution for which no pre-compiled binary is provided. In such a case the installation will only succeed if the following requirements are met:

* C++11 compatible compiler such as gcc 4.8+, clang 3.0+ or MSVC 2013+ * node-gyp and its dependencies (includes Python)

@xylomorph: Could you help Eugen with installing these requirements under Linux?

The more general question is if these problems occur for most Linux users or if this is a special case. @xylomorph: Do you also have this problem?

If that is the case I would probably be forced to remove the png export completely from argdown-cli. It is simply not worth causing such headaches.

[JenkaUbuntu]

Installation of argunet still fails:

• gcc was installed on my laptop when I first tried to update argdown to 0.9.0
• node-gyp I added today
• having gcc (5.4) and node-gyp installed, I tried to install argdown-cli again. The installation process failed ending in an infinite loop with warning user root does not have the permission to access the dev dir "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/argdown-cli/node_modules/sharp/.node-gyp"(screenshot attached)
  

[christianvoigt]

see nodejs/node-gyp#454 (comment)

Have you run npm install argdown-cli -g with or without sudo?
You can try using --allow-root or --unsafe-perm, but this is considered to be unsafe. The safe way seems to be to use nvm (see link above).

[JenkaUbuntu]

Have you run npm install argdown-cli -g with or without sudo?
I had to run npm as root, for the installation process needs to change libraries in a root directory /usr
The safe way seems to be to use nvm (see link above).
Indeed, using nvm works.
Here are the steps:

1. install nvm: https://github.com/tbaltrushaitis/tower-strike#install-nvm
2. install nodejs (version 9.11.1): nvm install 9.11.1
3. install argdown: nvm exec npm install -g argdown-cli

[christianvoigt]

Great!

Our next problem is that argdown-cli is used in the VS Code extension. So if you install or update the extension, it will try to install sharp again (once I release a new version of the extension) and it will probably fail because it runs without nvm.

One solution would be if the extension depended on a globally installed version of argdown-cli, but that would require everyone to install it separately. So this would mean fixing a problem by making it worse.

I have to think about this some more. I might still have to remove the PNG export from argdown-cli.

[christianvoigt]

Installing sharp in the VS Code extension also led to problems, so that decided the issue for me. I have removed the PNG export from argdown-cli.

If you want to use it (after all it works perfectly fine, once you have installed it), you can now add it to argdown-cli as an external plugin. Please visit the new home of the plugin for further details: https://github.com/christianvoigt/argdown-png-export

I am sorry for the inconvenience, but at least the whole process led to a really cool new feature of argdown-cli: you can now add your own custom plugins in the config file and execute them by using argdown run [my process name]! @xylomorph I think you will really like this (take a look here) :)