How To Install NVM on Debian 11

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install NVM on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, NVM stands for Node Version Manager which is a command-line tool used to install and manage multiple Node.JS versions. It allows the programmers for installing Node.js in their account only. This means the installation is done user-specific. All the users in a single system have their own installation of Node.js.

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 the step-by-step installation of NVM (Node Version Manager) 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.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo useror 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 NVM 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 curl gnupg2

Step 2. Installing NVM on Debian 11.

Now we run the following command below to download and run the NVM installation script:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/master/install.sh | bash

Then, appends the environment variables for NVM in the .bashrc file:

source ~/.bashrc

Alternatively, simply log out and log in again and confirm the version of NVM installed:

nvm --version

Step 3. Installing Node.js with NVM.

To install the latest version of Node.js, run the following command below:

nvm install node

If you want to install the latest LTS (Long Term Service ) version, run the command:

nvm install node --lts

You can also specify a specific version of NodeJS by specifying the version number. For example:

nvm install 12.19.0

Step 4. Use NVM to Manage Node.js.

To list all the versions of Node.JS installed, run:

nvm ls

To set your default Node.js version to 12.17.0, run the following command:

nvm use 12.19.0

To verify the default version already set in your account, run:

nvm run default --version

You can run a Node script with the desired version of node.js using the below command:

nvm exec 12.19.0 server.js

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