Install ctags from npm: no such option --no-parallel

Question

I recently installed node and npm to try it out but during an installation of a module it stuck on the ctags package which it depended on. Trying to only install ctags resulted in a weird error which I could not find a solution for.

henje@mymachine:~/test/node-ctags$ npm install
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/grunt
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/nan/0.8.0
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/bindings
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/grunt-contrib-coffee
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/event-stream
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/grunt-shell
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/node-gyp
[...]

> ctags@0.11.0 install /home/henje/test/node-ctags
> node-gyp rebuild

Usage: gyp_main.py [options ...] [build_file ...]

gyp_main.py: error: no such option: --no-parallel
gyp ERR! configure error
gyp ERR! stack Error: `gyp` failed with exit code: 2
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.onCpExit (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/lib/configure.js:340:16)
gyp ERR! stack     at ChildProcess.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:98:17)
gyp ERR! stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (child_process.js:797:12)
gyp ERR! System Linux 2.6.36.4-vs2.3.0.36.39-nc
gyp ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd /home/henje/test/node-ctags
gyp ERR! node -v v0.10.26
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v0.13.0
gyp ERR! not ok

npm ERR! ctags@0.11.0 install: `node-gyp rebuild`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the ctags@0.11.0 install script.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the ctags package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     node-gyp rebuild
npm ERR! You can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls ctags
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.
npm ERR! System Linux 2.6.36.4-vs2.3.0.36.39-nc
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! cwd /home/henje/test/node-ctags
npm ERR! node -v v0.10.26
npm ERR! npm -v 1.4.6
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/henje/test/node-ctags/npm-debug.log
npm ERR! not ok code 0

I am not sure if this is a general issue or just. I tried npm install ctags as well as cloning from github. I also checked if I have a recent gcc, etc. for gyp and have no idea left. I appreciate any answers.

Answer 1

I have also faced this issue while trying to install pm2 module. As a workaround, removing gyp solved this problem for me:

sudo apt-get remove gyp

Here is the issue itself listed in pm2 repository: https://github.com/Unitech/pm2/issues/434