This makes npm install work on WSL, i.e. Ubuntu on Windows.
In WSL, calls to rename() on a directory fail if a submember of that directory is open. This is often due to concurrent behavior. In npm, it seems it can be from processing sub-dependencies at the same time as a dependency.
This library intercepts the rename() call, informs the user of what it thinks is going on, and tries again. It works to fix the issue for me.
sudo apt-get install libcapstone3
sudo ln -s $(pwd)/*.so* /usr/lib
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/interceptrename.so npm install
https://github.com/pmem/syscall_intercept
touch interceptrename.c
make