Python 3.14 is not accepted in Branches v20.x, v22.x & v24.x

[richardlau]

Note that Python 3.14 is not accepted in Branches v20.x, V22.x & V24.x when using Visual Studio 2022. The error message is:

Please use python3.13 or python3.12 or python3.11 or python3.10 or python3.9 or python3.8 or python3.7 or python3.6.

This is however a separate issue. It also affects building on Linux with Fedora 43 (latest Fedora version) using the system-default version of Python (3.14).

Originally posted by @MikeMcC399 in #60869

cc @nodejs/releasers @nodejs/lts

(Disregard the Visual Studio 2022 bit, that's irrelevant for the Python issue. )

#59983 was marked dont-land-* for 25.x, 24.x, 22.x and 20.x but I think we do want the configure changes on the earlier release lines (provided no compatibility breakage with Python 3.14). I don't think we want the allow-prereleases change to the workflows (maybe that was the reason for the dont-land-* labels?).

[MikeMcC399]

@richardlau

I wasn't really sure whether this should be reported as an issue, which is why I just wrote it as a comment in #60869

If you think it would be helpful I can write up steps to reproduce using Fedora 43, which has Python 3.14 as default. It is however simple to install other versions, such as Python 3.13 on Fedora - see https://developer.fedoraproject.org/tech/languages/python/multiple-pythons.html - so a workaround is available in this case.

[richardlau]

The usual workaround is to bypass configure and run instead python3 configure.py (or python3.14 configure.py) which avoids any version sniffing. However as Python 3.14 becomes more commonplace, I think at least the more recent Node.js release lines ought to be able to autodetect it.

[aduh95]

Should we just backport #59983?