Cannot install packages using node package manager

Question

NodeJS interpreter name(node) on Ubuntu has been renamed to nodejs because of name conflict with another package. Here's what the readme.debian says:

The upstream name for the Node.js interpreter command is "node". In Debian the interpreter command has been changed to "nodejs".

This was done to prevent a namespace collision: other commands use the same name in their upstreams, such as ax25-node from the "node" package.

Scripts calling Node.js as a shell command must be changed to instead use the "nodejs" command.

However, using nodejs mucks up installing packages using npm. Package installation fails with the following error:

sh: 1: node: not found
npm WARN This failure might be due to the use of legacy binary "node"
npm WARN For further explanations, please read /usr/share/doc/nodejs/README.Debian

How do I make npm understand that nodejs is already installed on the system but the interpreter name is different?

Answer 1

On Linux Mint 17, I tried both solutions (creating a symlink or using the nodejs-legacy package) without success.

The only thing that finally worked for me was using the ppa from Chris Lea:

sudo apt-get purge node-*
sudo apt-get autoremove 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chris-lea/node.js
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs

This installed node version 10.37 and npm 1.4.28. After that, I could install packages globally.

Answer 2

I fixed it unlinking /usr/sbin/node (which is linked to ax25-node package), then I have create a link to nodejs using this on command line

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

Because package such as karma doesn't work with nodejs name, however changing the first line of karma script from node to nodejs, but I prefer resolve this issue once and for all

Answer 3

sudo apt-get --purge remove node
sudo apt-get --purge remove nodejs-legacy
sudo apt-get --purge remove nodejs

sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy
source ~/.profile

Combined the accepted answer with source ~/.profile from the comment that has been folded and some clean up commands before. Most likely you will also need to sudo apt-get install npm after.

Answer 4

Simple solution from here

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_7.x | sudo -E bash --
sudo apt-get install nodejs

You can specify version by changing setup_x.x value, for example to setup_5.x

Answer 5

Here's another approach I use since I like n for easy switching between node versions.

On a new Ubuntu system, first install the 'system' node:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup | sudo bash -

Then install n module globally:

npm install -g n

Since the system node was installed first (above), the alternatives system can be used to cleanly point to the node provided by n. First make sure the alternatives system has nothing for node:

update-alternatives --remove-all node

Then add the node provided by n:

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/node node /usr/local/bin/node 1

Next add node provided by the system (the one that was installed with curl):

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/node node /usr/bin/nodejs 2

Now select the node provided by n using the interactive menu (select /usr/local/bin/node from the menu presented by the following command):

update-alternatives --config node

Finally, since /usr/local/bin usually has a higher precedence in PATH than /usr/bin, the following alias must be created (enter in your .bashrc or .zshrc) if the alternatives system node is to be effective; otherwise the node installed with n in /usr/local/bin takes always precedence:

alias node='/usr/bin/node'

Now you can easily switch between node versions with n <desired node version number>.

Answer 6

for me problem was solved by,

sudo apt-get remove node
sudo apt-get remove nodejs
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node
alias node=nodejs
rm -r /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/localstack/node_modules
npm install -g npm@latest || sudo npm install -g npm@latest