How to Install Node.js - Overview

Now that we know what Node.js is, it is time to install and start using it. The installation is actually straightforward, and we will show you how to do it on a Linux-based system. Namely, Ubuntu and RedHat systems, since they are two of the more popular variations of Linux. Node.js themselves have an excellent library of installation instructions for a variety of Linux systems. We will focus on the two distributions we mentioned above for our purposes.

The tutorial assumes you are familiar with Linux systems and servers and know what a command line is and how to use it. If you want to read up on the Linux distributions we will discuss, you can go here and here. For assistance with the command line interface, you can read this article for Ubuntu or this one for RedHat. Aside from that, the computer or server you need does not matter. Node.js is light and optimized enough to run on almost any hardware.

The installation itself is straightforward. You should be done within ten minutes after entering a few commands in your system’s terminal. It is nothing more complicated than that. Most of the installation process will be waiting for packages to download and install. The difficulty comes from learning Node.js, not installing it.