Arch Linux User Repository

in my case, just ignoring package-lock.json is a shot.

diff --git a/PKGBUILD b/PKGBUILD
index ae5c72b..feff850 100644
--- a/PKGBUILD
+++ b/PKGBUILD
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ _github_url='https://github.com/balena-io/etcher'
 url='https://balena.io/etcher'
 license=(Apache-2.0)
 _electron=electron37
-depends=("${_electron}" "nodejs-lts-jod")
+depends=("${_electron}" "nodejs")
 makedepends=("npm" "python" 'jq' 'moreutils' 'python-setuptools' 'git')
 optdepends=("libnotify: for notifications")
 conflicts=("${_pkgname}"
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ build() {
   cd "${_pkgname}-${pkgver}"
   unset MAKEFLAGS

-  npm install
+  npm install --no-package-lock
   npm run package

   # node_modules for our etcher-util wrapper

another topic, a month ago, 2.1.4 was released.

for now, building 2.1.4 on nodejs(24.6.0) without --no-package-lock was succeed.

diff --git a/PKGBUILD b/PKGBUILD
index ae5c72b..2a65fa7 100644
--- a/PKGBUILD
+++ b/PKGBUILD
@@ -4,8 +4,8 @@

 pkgname=balena-etcher
 _pkgname=etcher
-pkgver=2.1.3
-pkgrel=2
+pkgver=2.1.4
+pkgrel=0
 epoch=2
 pkgdesc='Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives, safely and easily'
 arch=('x86_64' 'i686' 'armv7h' 'aarch64')
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ _github_url='https://github.com/balena-io/etcher'
 url='https://balena.io/etcher'
 license=(Apache-2.0)
 _electron=electron37
-depends=("${_electron}" "nodejs-lts-jod")
+depends=("${_electron}" "nodejs")
 makedepends=("npm" "python" 'jq' 'moreutils' 'python-setuptools' 'git')
 optdepends=("libnotify: for notifications")
 conflicts=("${_pkgname}"
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ source=("${_github_url}/archive/refs/tags/v${pkgver}.tar.gz"
   "etcher-util"
   'skip-build-util.patch'
 )
-sha256sums=('3d5c9d0c9067cae8953d6679c81e1e46832264fc39ce4342b2c8ae46c8f55bff'
+sha256sums=('acdd51d6a32d7c5063a425692c0757c99e420ba89fba92f59fb19bf003915827'
             '6c5fb48aeb636272689c86d7cf9beea4515214636bc617a61c3e8387628b3415'
             '7482eb18af030eb6d2b44850f23ecb99cd9198f642ac3b22b2f9f2ef0c8944d4'
             'f27e34eaec0d2cb74fee259ff32c2cbd1dae36d2046d2b3e97394b91f47adace'

The very "dirty" workaround is to use multi version nodejs installation via "nvm" package available in extra repo

Just read this to understand how nvm works, this is useful as nodejs conflict may happen in many situations. I have another package that requires the nodejs-lts-iron

https://www.baeldung.com/linux/multiple-node-js-versions

1) Guideline to install nodejs alternate versions alongside the wide system version

In my case I have chosen a wide installation path, so it requires root privileges, rather than home path to make nodejs alternate versions available for all users, and it is more easy to maintain, we can easily remove deprecated versions for everyone without digging in each home pathes, just playing with the environment variable NVM_DIR :

export NVM_DIR=/usr/local/bin/nvm

rather than the default value

~/.nvm

In such case remember to setup the wide environement variable NVM_DIR via a script dropped into

/etc/profile.d/your_script.sh

The NVM_DIR wide value can always be overriden in the ~/.bash_profile if a user prefers a home pathed version of nodejs

2) Setup virtual environment

So I have installed the nodejs.lts.jod and also nodejs.lts.iron directly with nvm command which download them directly from nodeJS server avoiding pacman warnings

So it installed nodejs alternate versions in :

/usr/local/bin/nvm/versions/node/v22.17.1

ln -s v22.17.1 nodejs-lts-jod

/usr/local/bin/nvm/versions/node/v20.19.14

ln -s v20.19.14 nodjs-lts-iron

If nodejs LTS receive update (check it periodcally with nvm list-remote) just remove the old version, install the new version and update the symlinks accordingly.

We will use it as a virtual environment.

Balena requires electron36 binary, and Balena itself so symlink

ln -s /usr/bin/electron36 -> /usr/local/bin/nvm/versions/node/nodejs-lts-jod/electron36

ln -s /usr/bin/balena-etcher -> /usr/local/bin/nvm/versions/node/nodejs-lts-jod/balena-etcher

3) Building installing balena-etcher

To build Balena-Etcher while avoiding pacman nodejs conflict we will build balena-etcher in a chroot.

Just read the man page of makepkgchroot to setup the environment. I personally use the "aurutils" Helper which seems to me the best helper

aur chroot -B

launches the building process of makepkgchroot, and I have setup all things to make move the built package automatically from building chroot to my AUR repo /var/cache/pacman/aurutils

So we force install the package by overriding the dependencies check with "-dd"

pacman -U -dd path_to_the_package/balena-etcher-2:2.1.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

4) Test

Fine, now to execute balena and force it to use nodejs-lts-jod, and not the system version, under console as a regular user :

env=PATH=/usr/local/bin/nvm/versions/node/nodejs-lts-jod balena-etcher

It's ok ? So let's polish the installation

5) Finalization

Copy

/usr/share/applications/balena-etcher.desktop

to

/usr/local/share/applications/balena-etcher.desktop

/usr/local/share/applications/*.desktop

override

/usr/share/applications/*.desktop

Avoiding the modified .desktop files to be crushed by an update

Modify the line Exec of the

/usr/local/share/applications/balena-etcher.desktop

from

Exec=balena-etcher %U

to

Exec=env=PATH=/usr/local/bin/nvm/versions/node/nodejs-lts-jod balena-etcher %U

Under KDE we can immediately update the .desktop cache files with

kbuildsycoca6

Just check via edit application menu in the KDE launcher that balena uses the new setup

CONCLUSION

Unfortunately this bad "trick" won't avoid

• Pacman complaints for missing dependency nodejs-lts-jod via

pacman -DK

• one must check and update regularly the LTS via nvm tools. Nodejs being sensible as it may be a terrible vector for attackers and one needs to recreate the symlinks Deprecated version must be quickly removed.

• when balena itself is updated, all things must be checked : the electron version, the nodejs version

This is the only way to solve the conflict issue. One can keep the default and very last version of nodejs as the system wide default. LTS versions, and possibly others are segregated in locations used as virtual environment in a same manner as python venv

Other rolling release distributions may possibly prefer the last LTS version as the default wide system rather than last nodejs version, this makes sense.

Ok, uninstalled after using nodejs-lts-jod, what a mess they want to make huh...

Thanks @b4shful I got it eventually working with the lts, but I will take what you said into consideration and be wary that other things may now stop working. So much for balena-etcher being something 'simple and easy'

Perhaps I upgraded the balena-ethecer by installing the first etcher-bin (that is miss functional) and after installing the balena-etcher.

no, I tried, currently, there seems no way to build it with nodejs.

Can we please not use a dependency on nodejs-lts-jod? Since it conflicts with the nodejs package, anyone who removes nodejs and installs nodejs-lts-jod (or agrees when an AUR helper asks to replace it) will then get stuck with an older nodejs version (albeit updated until October 2025, and with maintenance updates until April 2027). That will increasingly cause problems and incompatibilities as time goes on, and down the line could also expose people to security issues after jod's EOL.

I know whoever made this change probably just wanted to get the package to build, but may not have asked themselves "it built successfully, but at what cost?".

There are plenty of people who will spot something like this and steer clear of it (in my case, uninstalling this package), but there is also a subset of AUR users who are perhaps inexperienced and (despite warnings to the contrary) use the AUR as if it's just another repository without understanding what it actually is. It's worth considering that this change could cause problems to these users down the line and cause a lot of headaches, because they won't notice that their nodejs got swapped and by the time problems crop up they might have no idea what could have caused it. Of course not everything can cater to inexperienced users all the time, but I think here it's worth thinking about for everyone's sake... perhaps there's some way to get it working with the official nodejs package.

Error during upgrade

yay -S --sudoloop balena-etcher
 -> No AUR package found for nodejs-lts
 -> could not find all required packages: nodejs-lts

trying to install balena-etcher on CachyOS and get the following -

==> Checking buildtime dependencies... ==> WARNING: Using existing $srcdir/ tree ==> Starting build()... npm warn EBADENGINE Unsupported engine { npm warn EBADENGINE package: 'balena-etcher@1.19.25', npm warn EBADENGINE required: { node: '>=20 <21' }, npm warn EBADENGINE current: { node: 'v23.6.0', npm: '11.1.0' } npm warn EBADENGINE } npm warn EBADENGINE Unsupported engine { npm warn EBADENGINE package: 'etcher-sdk@9.1.2', npm warn EBADENGINE required: { node: '>=18 <22' }, npm warn EBADENGINE current: { node: 'v23.6.0', npm: '11.1.0' } npm warn EBADENGINE } npm warn skipping integrity check for git dependency ssh://git@github.com/balena-io-modules/unbzip2-stream.git npm warn deprecated xterm-addon-search@0.8.2: This package is now deprecated. Move to @xterm/addon-search instead. npm warn deprecated xterm-addon-fit@0.5.0: This package is now deprecated. Move to @xterm/addon-fit instead. npm warn deprecated xterm@4.19.0: This package is now deprecated. Move to @xterm/xterm instead. npm warn deprecated trim@0.0.1: Use String.prototype.trim() instead npm warn deprecated shortid@2.2.16: Package no longer supported. Contact Support at https://www.npmjs.com/support for more info. npm warn deprecated json-schema-ref-parser@6.1.0: Please switch to @apidevtools/json-schema-ref-parser npm warn deprecated gar@1.0.4: Package no longer supported. Contact Support at https://www.npmjs.com/support for more info. npm warn deprecated core-js@2.6.12: core-js@<3.23.3 is no longer maintained and not recommended for usage due to the number of issues. Because of the V8 engine whims, feature detection in old core-js versions could cause a slowdown up to 100x even if nothing is polyfilled. Some versions have web compatibility issues. Please, upgrade your dependencies to the actual version of core-js. npm warn deprecated asar@3.2.0: Please use @electron/asar moving forward. There is no API change, just a package name change npm warn deprecated @types/ajv-keywords@3.5.0: This is a stub types definition. ajv-keywords provides its own type definitions, so you do not need this installed. npm warn deprecated @npmcli/move-file@2.0.1: This functionality has been moved to @npmcli/fs npm warn deprecated uuid@3.4.0: Please upgrade to version 7 or higher. Older versions may use Math.random() in certain circumstances, which is known to be problematic. See https://v8.dev/blog/math-random for details.

added 2359 packages, and audited 2360 packages in 46s

386 packages are looking for funding run npm fund for details

56 vulnerabilities (3 low, 16 moderate, 34 high, 3 critical)

To address issues that do not require attention, run: npm audit fix

To address all issues (including breaking changes), run: npm audit fix --force

and it goes on and on and on...

Can you please fix this?

@xAsh @kelvie This package failed to be built with nodejs 23, see full log