How To Install Node.js on Debian 11

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Node.js on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, NodeJS is a technology that allows running Javascript on the server-side using Google’s V8 engine. It is used on both the back-end and front-end as a full-stack making development more consistent.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of Node.js on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Debian 11 (Bullseye).
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Node.js on Debian 11 Bullseye

Step 1. Before we install any software, it’s important to make sure your system is up to date by running the following apt commands in the terminal:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install build-essential

Step 2. Installing Node.js on Debian 11.

• Install Node.js using NodeSource

Now we add the official Node.js repository manually on Debian Bullseye:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_current.x | sudo -E bash -

Once the repository is added successfully, you can now install Node.js using the following command below:

sudo apt install nodejs

• Install Node.js using NVM.

From NVM (Node Version Manager) you can install Node.js using the following steps:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash

Now check the installed version of nvm:

nvm -v

Then, use the nvm command to install the latest stable version of Node.js:

nvm install --lts

Finally, check the Node.js version using the following command:

node -v

Check the npm version:

npm -v

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Node.js. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the latest version of Node.js on Debian 11 Bullseye. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Node.js website.