This tutorial describes how to easily install and update Node.js and npm on a Raspberry Pi. I'm using the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite (release date September 22nd 2022 at the time of writing) on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, but the instructions will probably work just fine on other Linux distributions.
This tutorial assumes that you only want to install a single version of Node.js and npm. If you want to run multiple versions at the same time, have a look at nvm.
First of all, we'll need to figure out the CPU architecture of the Raspberry Pi. All boards use ARM chips, but they don't all use the same CPU architecture.
SSH into your Pi and run lscpu | grep 'Architecture' to find out which architecture your Pi uses. You'll see something like 'armv7l' or 'aarch64'.
Once we know this piece of information, we're ready to download and install Node.js!
The Node.js Foundation provides pre-built binaries for a lot of different CPU architectures. There are two different versions of Node.js: a version containing the latest features and a long-term support version. Both versions can be installed using the same instructions in this tutorial.
On your computer, go to the Download page on Node.js' website: https://nodejs.org/en/download/
Click on the version you'd like to install (either 'LTS' or 'Current'). On the right of 'Linux Binaries (ARM)', right-click on the CPU architecture that your Pi is running and copy the target URL.
Tip! If the lscpu command printed aarch64, choose 'ARMv8'. Don't see the CPU architecture your Pi uses? You may be able to find it in the list of unofficial builds:
https://unofficial-builds.nodejs.org/download/release/
On your Pi, change directory to your home folder using cd ~.
Next, we'll use wget to download the Node.js binary. Simply type wget followed by the URL you copied and hit Return. This should look something like this:
wget https://nodejs.org/dist/v18.12.1/node-v18.12.1-linux-arm64.tar.xz
Once the binary has been download, we'll untar it using the tar utility. Type tar -x -f followed by the name of the archive and hit Return. This should look something like this: tar -x -f node-v18.12.1-linux-arm64.tar.xz
Once the archive has been extracted, we need to change directory into the extracted folder. Type cd followed by the name of the archive without the .tar.xz extension and hit Return. This should look something like this: cd node-v18.12.1-linux-arm64
The downloaded binary is now almost ready to be installed, which is as simple as copying all files from the extracted folder to the /usr/local/ folder. We'll do this using the cp utility. Super-user privileges are required, so we'll need to use sudo.
Before we start copying all files, we need to remove some static files that don't have to be copied to the /usr/local folder. Type rm -f CHANGELOG.md LICENSE README.md and hit Return to do this.
We're now ready to install Node.js and npm. Type sudo cp -R -f * /usr/local and hit Return. Once this is done, Node.js and npm should be ready for use!
To cleanup your home folder, type cd .. and hit Return. Then type rm -R -f followed by the name of the archive, a whitespace and the extracted folder name and hit Return. This should look something like this: rm -R -f node-v18.12.1-linux-arm64.tar.xz node-v18.12.1-linux-arm64
After running the above command, all installation files will be gone from your home folder.
Node.js and npm should now be correctly installed and ready for use. Simply run node -v to see the version of the installed binary. Running npm -v should print the version of the installed npm binary.
To update Node.js, simply follow the above instructions again. The old version will be overwritten. Note that the npm binary might be overwritten by a slightly older version, so if you want to you can update npm using the instructions below.
Updating npm is quite easy. Simply run sudo npm install npm@latest -g to install the latest version of npm. After running the command, type npm -v to see if the update went smoothly.