Error while installing less

Question

When i try to install less via this command:

npm install less .

I get an error:

npm ERR! Error: EROFS, symlink '../less/bin/lessc'
npm ERR! If you need help, you may report this *entire* log,
npm ERR! including the npm and node versions, at:
npm ERR!     <http://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues>

npm ERR! System Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64
npm ERR! command "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install" "less" "."
npm ERR! cwd /var/www/epi
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.24
npm ERR! npm -v 1.3.21
npm ERR! path ../less/bin/lessc
npm ERR! code EROFS
npm ERR! errno 56
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /var/www/epi/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

I'm using debian wheezy and I've installed node from sources .

Answer 1

Try running the install again with the --no-bin-link flag.

npm install --no-bin-link less .

When you perform a normal install the structure looks like this:

.
└── node_modules
    ├── .bin
    │   └── lessc
    └── less

All the --no-bin-link flag does is remove the symlink:

node_modules/.bin/lessc --> node_modules/less/bin/lessc

The lessc executable can still be used:

.
└── node_modules
    └── less
        └── bin
            └── lessc

---

All the above thoughts came from your specific error:

Error: EROFS, symlink

But more generally the EROFS error just means "Error: read only file system", so you may just need to change the permissions on your directory that you're running the install command in, or run it as root with sudo .