The issue involves modifying Node.js to include libatomic, which requires deep integration with upstream dependencies.
The issue highlights that Node.js requires libatomic on Debian/Ubuntu-based images, which is not pre-installed, causing runtime failures. The proposed solution involves integrating libatomic into Node.js, but this requires changes to upstream dependencies like V8 and may affect deployment assumptions.
Node 25.0.0 requires the libatomic library, it's in the docs since 25.2.0.
I've tried some current official Ubuntu images (24.04, 25.10, 26.04) and Debian images (12.12, 13.12) and none comes with libatomic installed.
Consequently installing node on Debian or Ubuntu will work, but running any commands will fail.
I assume that having a seamless installation experience, at least on major linux distros, is something Node would like to provide. I'm thinking a) install nvm, b) install node via nvm, c) done, you can use node now.
This is also how, for example, the npm docs tell you to install npm. And it no longer works on Debian or Ubuntu based images unless you also install "libatomic".
Debian and Ubuntu are two of the major linux distros. Many projects are using one of their images as the basis for their official docker images. For example, the official Jenkins image is debian based and the latest version (jenkins/jenkins:2.538-jdk21) can not run node 25+, unless you first install "libatomic" into the container that is.
I am not familiar enough with linux or node to tell whether or not node could include libatomic. But if that was possible and practical then that would allow debian and ubuntu based images to run node again without having to install libatomic first.
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