Installing node-red on Ubuntu 16.04

[Colin Law]

I have installed node-red on Ubuntu 16.04 following the instructions
at http://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/installation.html

I installed nodejs 4.2.6 and npm 3.52
sudo apt install nodejs npm
Then installed node-red using npm
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm node-red
This gave some node-gyp errors which the installation instructions
says I can ignore

However when I run node red using

cd ~/.node-red
node-red

I got
/usr/bin/env: ‘node’: No such file or directory

This appears to be due to the fact that the node-red script expects
the node.js binary to be named node whereas the Ubuntu install names
it nodejs. I fixed this by running
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

and all is now well.
My question is where should this be fixed? Should the installation
instructions be extended to mention this or should the script be
extended or what?

Colin

[Dave C-J]

Colin,

which instruction path did you follow ? If you followed the package manager one for ubuntu then you should have got node.js 4.5.x - 

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

[Dave C-J]

Which does include the "node" command

[Colin Law]

OK, I missed that. When the instructions said, for node.js
"You may want to use a version from your operating system’s package manager."
I interpreted that, wrongly, to mean that I could just install using
sudo apt install nodejs

I will take everything off and start again to see whether all is then
as it should be.

Thanks

Colin

[Dave C-J]

Ah, yes that could be made more clear. Will edit. Thanks.

[Julian Knight]

I strongly recommend following the instructions on the Node.JS website for installations as that will get you the best version and allow easy updates.

https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions

It recommends a specific repository which is more consistent that Ubuntu's own listing.

[Colin Law]

On 11 September 2016 at 16:27, Julian Knight <j.kni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I strongly recommend following the instructions on the Node.JS website for
> installations as that will get you the best version and allow easy updates.
>
> https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions

I think that is the same link that is in the instructions on
http://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/installation.html that I
failed to follow fully.

Colin

>
> It recommends a specific repository which is more consistent that Ubuntu's
> own listing.
>
> On Sunday, 11 September 2016 13:58:37 UTC+1, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> On 11 September 2016 at 09:47, Dave C-J <dce...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Colin,
>> >
>> > which instruction path did you follow ? If you followed the package
>> > manager
>> > one for ubuntu then you should have got node.js 4.5.x -
>> >
>> > curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -
>> > sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
>>
>> OK, I missed that. When the instructions said, for node.js
>> "You may want to use a version from your operating system’s package
>> manager."
>> I interpreted that, wrongly, to mean that I could just install using
>> sudo apt install nodejs
>>
>> I will take everything off and start again to see whether all is then
>> as it should be.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Colin
>

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[Julian Knight]

Ah, sorry, I should have checked that before opening mouth and inserting foot! :-}

[Dave C-J]

Docs updated. Hopefully slightly clearer.

Thanks

[Colin Law]

I can confirm that installing nodejs on Ubuntu 16.04 using the instructions at
https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions
installs 4.5.0 and allows for a working node-red system. The install
includes the link that I previously had to add manually:
$ ls -l /usr/bin/node*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Sep 12 09:01 /usr/bin/node ->
/etc/alternatives/node
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20743296 Aug 16 19:49 /usr/bin/nodejs

$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/node
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Sep 12 09:01 /etc/alternatives/node -> /usr/bin/nodejs

Thanks all for the help

Colin

[Julian Knight]

You mentioned that you had npm v3.x installed, if that is now the default with node v4.5 we may see some issues with older contrib nodes since npm v3 uses a much flatter installation structure that some modules don't like.

[Colin Law]

When I installed from the standard Ubuntu repo I got nodejs 4.2.6 and
npm 3.5.2, but installing from the nodejs repo gives nodejs 4.5.0 and
npm 2.15.9.

Colin

[Julian Knight]

Phew. Another reason to make sure everyone installs from the standard instructions and not the default repo.