How to install Node.js on Linux
Posted on November 13, 2015 by Dan Nanni Leave a comment
Question: How can I install Node.js on [insert your Linux distro]?
Node.js is a server-side software platform built on Google‘s V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js has become a popular choice for building high-performance server-side applications all in JavaScript. What makes Node.js even more attractive for backend server development is the huge ecosystem of Node.js libraries and applications. Node.js comes with a command line utility called npm which allows you to easily install, version-control, and manage dependencies of Node.js libraries and applications from the vast npm online repository.
In this tutorial, I will describe how to install Node.js on major Linux distros including Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and CentOS.
Node.js is available as a pre-built package on some distros (e.g., Fedora or Ubuntu), while you need to install it from its source on other distros. As Node.js is fast evolving, it is recommended to install the latest Node.js from its source, instead of installing an outdated pre-built package. The lasted Node.js comes with npm (Node.js package manager) bundled, allowing you to install external Node.js modules easily.
Install Node.js on Debian
Starting from Debian 8 (Jessie), Node.js is available in the official repositories. Thus you can install it with:
$ sudo apt-get install npm
On Debian 7 (Wheezy) or earlier, you can install Node.js from its source as follows.
$ sudo apt-get install python g++ make
$ wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
$ tar xvfvz node-latest.tar.gz
$ cd node-v0.10.21 (replace a version with your own)
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
Install Node.js on Ubuntu or Linux Mint
Node.js is included in Ubuntu (13.04 and higher). Thus installation is straightforward. The following will install Node.js and npm.
$ sudo apt-get install npm
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node
While stock Ubuntu ships Node.js, you can install a more recent version from its PPA.
$ sudo apt-get install python-software-properties python g++ make
$ sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:chris-lea/node.js
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install npm
Install Node.js on Fedora
Node.js is included in the base repository of Fedora. Therefore you can use yum to install Node.js on Fedora.
$ sudo yum install npm
If you want to install the latest version of Node.js, you can build it from its source as follows.
$ sudo yum groupinstall ‘Development Tools‘
$ wget http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
$ tar xvfvz node-latest.tar.gz
$ cd node-v0.10.21 (replace a version with your own)
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
Install Node.js on CentOS or RHEL
To install Node.js with yum package manager on CentOS, first enable EPEL repository, and then run:
$ sudo yum install npm
If you want to build the latest Node.js on CentOS, follow the same procedure as in Fedora.
Install Node.js on Arch Linux
Node.js is available in the Arch Linux community repository. Thus installation is as simple as running:
$ sudo pacman -S nodejs npm
Check the Version of Node.js
Once you have installed Node.js, you can check Node.js version as follows
On ec2 instance, you may need to do :
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/node /usr/bin/node
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/node /usr/lib/node
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/npm /usr/bin/npm
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/node-waf /usr/bin/node-waf