Can nvm be installed via NPM?

[shamasis]

It would be great if nvm installs via NPM. Then installing node will become super easy on Raspberry Pi.

I can help if needed.

[ljharb]

nvm is a tool for managing node installs - it doesn't really make sense for it to be installed via npm. However, to replace the current incorrect nvm package on npm, I'll be publishing it there as part of #304, which this is a duplicate of.

[shamasis]

Okay. Just a small info - sudo apt-get install npm is the only thing that works on RaspberryPi. It does not install node along with it. Installing node on RaspberryPi is a manual process.

So, if npm can install itself without node, then why can't npm install nvm? :-p

[ljharb]

that's a very strange situation - npm actually requires node to function, so it's not possible to use it without having node available.

nvm is installed solely by sourcing an install shell script - it requires curl or wget for installing node, and git can optionally be used for a more reliable install. Can that not be done on a pi?

[shamasis]

Why would npm require node to function? It is simply a package manager like homebrew or aptitude. It is installed standalone (without node). :-/

Oh yes!! NVM installs just fine via curl or wget or git on Pi. :-) just that being able to install it via package manager is just that single step towards syntactic sugar!

In my opinion, this is a very unimportant feature request and is of very low priority! But replacing the current (misleading) nvm on npm is a good enough reason. :/p

[ljharb]

npm is primarily written in Javascript. It absolutely requires node, even if it's installed standalone.

nvm is not officially distributed on a package manager right now, so it shouldn't be installed that way.

[shamasis]

Yes NPM is written on JS. But then, weirdest part is that aptitude does install npm, but node is not installed along with it on Pi. Theoretically without node it shouldn't work. In fact the bin scripts on npm package refers node straight, but on Pi, node binaries are not present in the location where npm is installed. Neither is node available in any of the path variables. 

For the sake of information, I will delve deeper and update this thread. Perhaps, I'm missing something. Thank you for your patience. :-)