Error on installing on Ubuntu Server

[skotchio]

When I try to install node-canvas on my Ubuntu Server 12.04 I get the following error:

In file included from ../src/Canvas.cc:8:0:
../src/PNG.h: In function 'cairo_status_t canvas_write_png(cairo_surface_t*, png_rw_ptr, void*)':
../src/PNG.h:139:10: error: 'CAIRO_FORMAT_RGB30' was not declared in this scope

What does it mean?

[kkoopa]

Your version of Cairo is too old. CAIRO_FORMAT_RGB30 was added in some version later than the one normally available on Ubuntu 12.04. You can either upgrade Cairo by getting it and necessary dependencies from Raring Ringtail, or patch PNG.h and replace CAIRO_FORMAT_RGB30 with 5. I don't know how stable the latter approach is, it might work fine --- it might not, so I recommend the first option.

Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and add the sources for raring ringtail.

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu raring main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu raring main restricted universe multiverse

Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/01ubuntu and add the line APT::Default-Release "precise"; to set your default apt source to Precise Pangolin.

Then edit /etc/apt/preferences.d/libcairo2-pin-400 and pin the required packages to Raring Ringtail.

Package: libcairo2
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: libcairo2-dev
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: libcairo-gobject2
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: libcairo-script-interpreter2
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: libpixman-1-0
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: libpixman-1-dev
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: fontconfig-config
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

Package: libfontconfig1
Pin: release n=raring
Pin-Priority: 400

You can now run apt-get install libcairo2-dev -t raring to install the newer version of Cairo from Raring Ringtail.

For more information, read the man page: man apt_preferences.

[skotchio]

Thanks!

[distracteddev]

For anyone else that might stumble upon this I thought I should add that you need to run sudo apt-get update after editing the files.