apt's default behavior of automatically installing recommended packages strikes again. Seeing if I can trace it back to a specific recommended package. Node.js and npm certainly don't require X11.
It seems the culprit is that nnpm recommends node-tap (some testing thing), which depends on some X11 and XDG stuff, which pulls in more X11 stuff via recommendations.
@emilis @Anachron In my experience, apt installs recommended packages by default on both distros. The solution is the --no-install-recommends command-line option. I think you can also make that the default in a config file somewhere.
It even tried installing x11 packages on a Raspbian server.
Now I wonder what other garbage I got installed with other packages.
Anyway, as a seasoned JS developer I recommend downloading archives from nodejs.org/en/download directly, extracting them in a local directory and symlinking the 3 binaries (node, npm, npx) into your PATH.
Matt Campbell
in reply to mort • • •Matt Campbell
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •Anachron
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •@matt why does it automatically do this? This is insane. Why cant package managers actually do what they're told?
I could understand if it were to "recommend" some packages, but automatically installing them alongside?
I'm happy I am not using apt.
Emilis 🇺🇦
in reply to Anachron • • •@Anachron @matt I think this is probably Ubuntu-specific.
I'm using Debian with apt and haven't run into such problems ever.
Matt Campbell
in reply to Emilis 🇺🇦 • • •Emilis 🇺🇦
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •@matt @Anachron You are right.
It even tried installing x11 packages on a Raspbian server.
Now I wonder what other garbage I got installed with other packages.
Anyway, as a seasoned JS developer I recommend downloading archives from nodejs.org/en/download directly, extracting them in a local directory and symlinking the 3 binaries (node, npm, npx) into your PATH.
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