# Install Node and npm to an Ubuntu box

This post looks how it’s best to install Node with `nvm`.

Ideally, Node could be installed with `$ apt-get install nodejs`, but the node
in `apt-get` is not up to date, hence the preferred tool is **nvm**, Node
Version Manager.

## Install nvm

Few packages are needed for the installation process:

```
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev
```

Then grab the **nvm** install script:

```
$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.7.0/install.sh | sh
```

That command will also run it.

Now `exit` your box and log back in, or source the `~/.profile`:

```
$ source ~/.profile
```

## Install Node

The latest Node version can be queried with the nvm tool we just installed:

```
$ nvm ls-remote
```

It spews out a long list of Node version, the last one is the latest, at the
moment it seems to be `v0.11.14`. Now it’s extremely easy to get Node installed:

```
$ nvm install 0.11.14
```

That’s pretty much it.

## Troubleshooting the node installation

If getting the following error when trying to install a package via `npm`:

```
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/express

npm ERR! Error: failed to fetch from registry: express
npm ERR!     at /usr/share/npm/lib/utils/npm-registry-client/get.js:139:12
npm ERR!     at cb (/usr/share/npm/lib/utils/npm-registry-client/request.js:31:9)
npm ERR!     at Request._callback (/usr/share/npm/lib/utils/npm-registry-client/request.js:136:18)
npm ERR!     at Request.callback (/usr/lib/nodejs/request/main.js:119:22)
npm ERR!     at Request.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/nodejs/request/main.js:212:58)
npm ERR!     at Request.emit (events.js:88:20)
npm ERR!     at ClientRequest.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/nodejs/request/main.js:412:12)
npm ERR!     at ClientRequest.emit (events.js:67:17)
npm ERR!     at HTTPParser.onIncoming (http.js:1261:11)
npm ERR!     at HTTPParser.onHeadersComplete (http.js:102:31)
npm ERR! You may report this log at:
npm ERR!     <http://bugs.debian.org/npm>
npm ERR! or use
npm ERR!     reportbug --attach /var/log/npm-debug.log npm
npm ERR!
npm ERR! System Linux 3.8.0-29-generic
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "-g" "express"
npm ERR! cwd /var/log
npm ERR! node -v v0.6.12
npm ERR! npm -v 1.1.4
npm ERR! message failed to fetch from registry: express
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /var/log/npm-debug.log
npm not ok
```

It might be that Node was installed via `apt-get`, and the `apt-get` version of
Node is most certainly out of date and can't locate the registry.