npm install fail for multiple versions of node

Question

I'm not very used to working with node and I'm having a nightmare installing the packages for a project.

I'm using vagrant/VirtualBox Homestead on Windows 10 for a Laravel (5.2) project. When doing npm install I've had a whole bunch errors - I can't remember them all specifically, but I'm wondering if there is some big picture issue I'm missing.

My first attempt was with a recent node node version - 12.something I think.

Then I was told that "some of those older projects used v8, I think", so I used nvm to do that and got a whole bunch of different issues. Some involved sym links, so I deleted node_modules and tried with --no-bin-links. That didn't work, and one of the errors, when I looked on SO, was down to node version, so I tried v9.0.0, which gave different problems.

How hard can it be?

I don't know enough about this frontend stuff to know if it's normal to have so much trouble, or if I have not been given sufficient information - e.g. "you absolutely need to use node version 8.1.3, with these specific other details..." or something like that.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get this working? The node-sass package seems to be a significant culprit in the overall failage of the installation...

Below is my package.json

{
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "prod": "gulp --production",
    "dev": "gulp watch"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "gulp": "^3.9.1",
    "laravel-elixir": "^5.0.0",
    "bootstrap-sass": "^3.0.0"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "node-sass": "^4.1.0"
  }
}

Answer 1

I was heading same problem last time. Here is what I did:

Using terminal in homestead directory run command vagrant plugin install vagrant-winnfsd it will install plugin that allows you to use NFS protocol on Windows.

Edit you Homestead.yaml file like that:

folders:
    - map: ~/Projects
    to: /home/vagrant/code
    type: "nfs"

Run command vagrant reload --provision. After that when you use secure shell - vagrant ssh you should be able to run npm install from inside you project directory.