Description of problem: Trying to downgrade to nodejs:8 from modular nodejs:10 blows up. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): nodejs:10:20180920144631 nodejs:8:20180816123422 How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. dnf module install nodejs:10 2. dnf module install nodejs:8 OR dnf module enable nodejs:8 && dnf distro-sync Actual results: Installation fails on many, many file conflicts, e.g.: Running transaction check Transaction check succeeded. Running transaction test The downloaded packages were saved in cache until the next successful transaction. You can remove cached packages by executing 'dnf clean packages'. Error: Transaction check error: file /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/JSONStream from install of npm-1:5.6.0-1.8.11.4.1.module_2030+281d4413.x86_64 conflicts with file from package npm-1:6.4.1-1.10.11.0.1.module_2200+36094b1f.x86_64 file /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/abbrev from install of npm-1:5.6.0-1.8.11.4.1.module_2030+281d4413.x86_64 conflicts with file from package npm-1:6.4.1-1.10.11.0.1.module_2200+36094b1f.x86_64 file /usr/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/ansi-regex from install of npm-1:5.6.0-1.8.11.4.1.module_2030+281d4413.x86_64 conflicts with file from package npm-1:6.4.1-1.10.11.0.1.module_2200+36094b1f.x86_64 (...) Expected results: My system downgrades nodejs to nodejs:8 packages. Additional info: This might not be possible to fix due to changes in nodejs packaging. But let's check.
Unfortunately, we can't make this work. Between Node.js 8 and Node.js 10, the packaging of the bundled NPM changed significantly and required us to replace a whole lot of symlinks with a real directory. See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1594647 for all the gory details. Because of limitations in RPM, we can't downgrade back to the older version without considerable hacking around in pre- and post- scripts.
*** Bug 1638778 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
For the record, the workaround here is to completely remove the nodejs RPM from the system before switching streams and then reinstall it.
(In reply to Stephen Gallagher from comment #3) > For the record, the workaround here is to completely remove the nodejs RPM > from the system before switching streams and then reinstall it. I would assume this bug is still floating around, correct? At least I can report a behaviour similar to the one reported in bug 1638778 (the duplicate mentioned above). My problem is: these messages appeared after a `# dnf remove nodejs npm` and a reinstall. Is there additional steps required to 'completely' remove it? Cheers!
Edit, and solution for the records: I installed nvm from source (i.e. from https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm#install--update-script ) and then installed through nvm itself (`nvm install --lts`, no need to pick the stable long term version, just a personal choice.) `dnf` had removed some stuff, so that checking `node -v` would return `command not found`, and then nvm took care of the rest.