Installing a specific Node version in ubuntu

Chris Lea has 0.8.23 in his ppa repo.

This package let you add a repository to apt-get: (You can also do this manually)

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

Add Chris Lea's repository:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js-legacy

Update apt-get:

sudo apt-get update

Install Node.js:

sudo apt-get install nodejs=0.8.23-1chl1~precise1

I think (feel free to edit) the version number is optional if you only add node.js-legacy. If you add both legacy and ppa/chris-lea/node.js you most likely need to add the version.

version 0.10 is also avaible with this ppa

apt-add-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js

install nodejs with:

apt-get install nodejs=0.10.25-1chl1~precise1

Thanks to my friend Julian Xhokaxhiu

FYI the available version for raring in Chris Lea's repo is currently 0.8.25

sudo apt-get install nodejs=0.8.25-2chl1~raring1

NOTE: you can use NVM software to do this in a more nodejs fashionway. However i got issues in one machine that didn't let me use NVM. So i have to look for an alternative ;-)

You can manually download and install.

go to nodejs > download > other releases http://nodejs.org/dist/

choose the version you are looking for http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.8.18/

choose distro files corresponding your environmment and download (take care of 32bits/64bits version). Example: http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.8.18/node-v0.8.18-linux-x64.tar.gz

Extract files and follow instructions on README.md :

To build:

Prerequisites (Unix only):

* Python 2.6 or 2.7
* GNU Make 3.81 or newer
* libexecinfo (FreeBSD and OpenBSD only)

Unix/Macintosh:

./configure
make
make install

If your python binary is in a non-standard location or has a non-standard name, run the following instead:

export PYTHON=/path/to/python
$PYTHON ./configure
make
make install

Windows:

vcbuild.bat

To run the tests:

Unix/Macintosh:

make test

Windows:

vcbuild.bat test

To build the documentation:

make doc

To read the documentation:

man doc/node.1

Maybe you want to (must to) move the folder to a more apropiate place like /usr/lib/nodejs/node-v0.8.18/ then create a Symbolic Lynk on /usr/bin to get acces to your install from anywhere.

sudo mv /extracted/folder/node-v0.8.18 /usr/lib/nodejs/node-v0.8.18
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/nodejs/node-v0.8.18/bin/node /usr/bin/node

And if you want different release in the same machine you can use debian alternatives. Proceed in the same way posted before to download a second release. For example the latest release.

http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ -> http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-v0.10.28-linux-x64.tar.gz

Move to your favorite destination, the same of the rest of release you want to install.

sudo mv /extracted/folder/node-v0.10.28 /usr/lib/nodejs/node-v0.10.28

Follow instructions of the README.md file. Then update the alternatives, for each release you have dowload install the alternative with.

sudo update-alternatives    --install genname symlink  altern  priority  [--slave  genname  symlink altern]
          Add a group of alternatives  to  the  system.   genname  is  the
          generic  name  for  the  master link, symlink is the name of its
          symlink  in  the  alternatives  directory,  and  altern  is  the
          alternative being introduced for the master link.  The arguments
          after  --slave  are  the  generic  name,  symlink  name  in  the
          alternatives  directory  and alternative for a slave link.  Zero
          or more --slave options, each followed by three  arguments,  may
          be specified.

          If   the   master   symlink  specified  exists  already  in  the
          alternatives system’s records, the information supplied will  be
          added  as a new set of alternatives for the group.  Otherwise, a
          new group, set to  automatic  mode,  will  be  added  with  this
          information.   If  the group is in automatic mode, and the newly
          added alternatives’ priority is higher than any other  installed
          alternatives  for  this  group,  the symlinks will be updated to
          point to the newly added alternatives.

for example:

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/node node /usr/lib/nodejs/node-v0.10.28 0 --slave /usr/share/man/man1/node.1.gz node.1.gz /usr/lib/nodejs/node-v0.10.28/share/man/man1/node.1

Then you can use update-alternatives --config node to choose between any number of releases instaled in your machine.

FYI, according to this page in the wiki of the nodejs github repo, Chris Lea's PPA (mentioned in several other answers) has been superseded by the NodeSource distributions as the main way of installing nodejs from source in Ubuntu:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup | sudo bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

This is supported for the three latest (at the time of writing this) LTS versions of Ubuntu: 10.04 (lucid), 12.04 LTS (precise) and 14.04 (trusty).

I'm not sure this will help in installing an old version of nodejs, but I'm putting this here in case it helps others who needed to install a specific (newer) version of nodejs that isn't included in their distro's repositories.

The Node.js project recently pushed out a new stable version with the 0.10.0 release Use the following command on Ubuntu 13x sudo apt-get install nodejs=0.10.18-1chl1~raring1