The solution of lacking libudev.so.0

Due to the removal of libudev0 and its associated library libudev.so.0, node-webkit isn't able to run on newer distributions such as:

• Ubuntu 13.04
• Fedora 18, 19
• Arch
• Gentoo
• Derivatives of the above

...and possibly others. Until node-webkit is updated to depend on the currently shipped version libudev.so.1, the following solutions should provide a stopgap measure for packaging your applications.

1. Create global symlink to libudev.so.1 by hand.

install the package libudev1, and there is libudev.so.1 at /lib/x86_64-linux-gun/libudev.so.1. On Ubuntu for example, Run:

# apt-get install libudev1
# cd /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
# ln -s libudev.so.1 libudev.so.0

2. Create local symlink to libudev.so.1

Same as above install libudev1 if needed. Now create a local symlink to libudev.so.1. On Ubuntu for example, run from the directory where nw files are extracted:

# ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.1 ./libudev.so.0

Then create a shell script to run nw:

#!/bin/sh
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/omi/nw:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./nw $*

As you are only modifying local contents of node-webkit directory, this option should not have an impact on the overall stability of your system.

3. Modify the .deb or .rpm package file

When install your app through the package. We can add some scripts for solving it. At the post install, create the symlink to libudev.so.1.

Select the deb of Ubuntu for example. In the DEBIAN/postinst add these code.

get_lib_dir() {
  if [ "$DEFAULT_ARCH" = "i386" ]; then
    LIBDIR=lib/i386-linux-gnu
  elif [ "$DEFAULT_ARCH" = "amd64" ]; then
    LIBDIR=lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  else
    echo Unknown CPU Architecture: "$DEFAULT_ARCH"
    exit 1
  fi
}

LIBUDEV_0=libudev.so.0
LIBUDEV_1=libudev.so.1

add_udev_symlinks() {
  get_lib_dir
  if [ -f "/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_0" -o -f "/usr/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_0" -o -f "/lib/$LIBUDEV_0" ]; then
    return 0
  fi

  if [ -f "/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_1" ]; then
    ln -snf "/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_1" "/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_0"
  elif [ -f "/usr/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_1" ];
  then
    ln -snf "/usr/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_1" "/$LIBDIR/$LIBUDEV_0"
  else
    echo "$LIBUDEV_1" not found in "$LIBDIR" or "/usr/$LIBDIR".
    exit 1
  fi
}