I'd like to use the distribution Node.js packages (or the chris-lea ppa for more recent releases) but install NPM to my home directory.
This may seem picky, but it's a pretty idiomatic way for polyglot/github-using developers to setup language runtime/library environments under Linux: distro packages for the runtime, 3rd-party libraries in per-user environment (see virtualenv, RVM - RVM will also build Ruby for you if you want). If necessary I will build node locally but it's a PITA since Node is becoming an incidental development requirement for lots of projects.
The second link seems like it might work with distribution nodejs packages, but it seems pretty sketchy.
Update this paste sums up the second link above, but doesn't work for me (it seems like npm ignores ~/.npmrc, at least during install).
NPM will install local packages into your projects already, but I still like to keep the system away from my operating system's files. Here's how I suggest compartmentalizing Nodejs packages:
Install Nodejs and NPM via the chris-lea PPA. Then I set up a package root in my homedir to hold the Node "global" packages:
$ NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"
$ mkdir -p "$NPM_PACKAGES"
Set NPM to use this directory for its global package installs:
$ echo "prefix = $NPM_PACKAGES" >> ~/.npmrc
Configure your PATH and MANPATH to see commands in your $NPM_PACKAGES prefix by adding the following to your .zshrc/.bashrc:
# NPM packages in homedir
NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"
# Tell our environment about user-installed node tools
PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/bin:$PATH"
# Unset manpath so we can inherit from /etc/manpath via the `manpath` command
unset MANPATH # delete if you already modified MANPATH elsewhere in your configuration
MANPATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/share/man:$(manpath)"
# Tell Node about these packages
NODE_PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/lib/node_modules:$NODE_PATH"
Now when you do an npm install -g, NPM will install the libraries into ~/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules, and link executable tools into ~/.npm-packages/bin, which is in your PATH.
Just use npm install -g as you would normally:
[justjake@marathon:~] $ npm install -g coffee-script
... (npm downloads stuff) ...
/home/justjake/.npm-packages/bin/coffee -> /home/justjake/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/bin/coffee
/home/justjake/.npm-packages/bin/cake -> /home/justjake/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/bin/cake
coffee-script@1.3.3 /home/justjake/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules/coffee-script
[justjake@marathon:~] $ which coffee
/home/justjake/.npm-packages/bin/coffee
The solution posted by Just Jake is great. However, due to a bug with npm > 1.4.10, it may not work as expected. (See this and this)
While the bug is solved, you can downgrade to npm 1.4.10 by following this steps:
sudo npm install -g npm@1.4.10npm --version)Because python does already a great job virtualenv, I use nodeenv. Compared to nvm, you can create multiple environments for the same node version (e.g. two environments for node 0.10 but with different sets of packages).
ENVNAME=dev1
# create an environment
python -m virtualenv ${ENVNAME}
# switch to the newly created env
source ${ENVNAME}/bin/activate
# install nodeenv
pip install nodeenv
# install system's node into virtualenv
nodeenv --node=system --python-virtualenv
The readme is pretty good: https://github.com/ekalinin/nodeenv
To expand on the answer provided by Just Jake and user1533401: I am unable to downgrade as I use shared hosting and node is installed in a system directory. This is also why I have change the directory where npm installs global scripts if I want it to do that. For those in the same boat, here is a another temporary fix I found works:
npm install -g --prefix=$(npm config get prefix) <package>
The bug is that npm doesn't read your per-user config file, but specifying it every time you install a global script fixes that. Found here.