"Ionic start projectName" not working with Ionic Framework

I am using Ubuntu 14.04.

I've followed a couple of tutorials on how to install the Ionic Framework on Ubuntu 14.04, including the official guide, basically just doing the following:

sudo npm install -g ionic
sudo npm install -g cordova 

Then I run the command ionic start myproject, but I just get no response...just a new line in the terminal, and when I check the directory, nothing has been created. I also tried sudo ionic start myproject, but that also just returns a new line and the project has not been created.

I have also run ionic --help, which again returns a new line and nothing else.

when I run npm ls, I can see that both cordova and ionic have been installed globally.

What do I need to do in order to get ionic up and running, so that I can run the command ionic start whateverProject and have a new project created?

Thanks!