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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T08:51:20+00:00

I’d like to use the distribution Node.js packages (or the chris-lea ppa for more

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I’d like to use the distribution Node.js packages (or the chris-lea ppa for more recent releases) but install NPM to my home directory.

This may seem picky, but it’s a pretty idiomatic way for polyglot/github-using developers to setup language runtime/library environments under Linux: distro packages for the runtime, 3rd-party libraries in per-user environment (see virtualenv, RVM – RVM will also build Ruby for you if you want). If necessary I will build node locally but it’s a PITA since Node is becoming an incidental development requirement for lots of projects.

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  1. Editorial Team

    NPM will install local packages into your projects already, but I still like to keep the system away from my operating system’s files. Here’s how I suggest compartmentalizing Nodejs packages:

    Install Nodejs and NPM via the chris-lea PPA. Then I set up a package root in my homedir to hold the Node "global" packages:

     $ NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"
 $ mkdir -p "$NPM_PACKAGES"

    Set NPM to use this directory for its global package installs:

     $ echo "prefix = $NPM_PACKAGES" >> ~/.npmrc

    Configure your PATH and MANPATH to see commands in your $NPM_PACKAGES prefix by adding the following to your .zshrc/.bashrc:

    # NPM packages in homedir
NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"

# Tell our environment about user-installed node tools
PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/bin:$PATH"
# Unset manpath so we can inherit from /etc/manpath via the `manpath` command
unset MANPATH  # delete if you already modified MANPATH elsewhere in your configuration
MANPATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/share/man:$(manpath)"

# Tell Node about these packages
NODE_PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/lib/node_modules:$NODE_PATH"

    Now when you do an npm install -g, NPM will install the libraries into ~/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules, and link executable tools into ~/.npm-packages/bin, which is in your PATH.

    Just use npm install -g as you would normally:

    [justjake@marathon:~] $ npm install -g coffee-script
... (npm downloads stuff) ...
/home/justjake/.npm-packages/bin/coffee -> /home/justjake/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/bin/coffee
/home/justjake/.npm-packages/bin/cake -> /home/justjake/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/bin/cake
coffee-script@1.3.3 /home/justjake/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules/coffee-script

[justjake@marathon:~] $ which coffee
/home/justjake/.npm-packages/bin/coffee
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