We can say that npm is a package manager for Node.js with hundreds of thousands of packages.
Although it does create some of your directory structure/organization, this is not the main purpose. The main goal, as you touched upon, is the automated dependency and package management.
Whenever you work with npm/node you can see it manages a file called package.json in which it stores all the dependency you have used in your project under the dependency section. Which means you can specify your project’s dependencies in the package.json file and any time you or anyone else needs to get started with your project they can just need to run npm install which will install all the dependencies in the node_module directory. On top of this, it is also possible to specify what versions your project depends upon to prevent updates from breaking your project.
It is definitely possible to manually download your libraries, copy them into the correct directories, and use them that way. However, as your project and list of dependencies grows, this will quickly become time-consuming and messy. It also makes collaboration and sharing more difficult. So to make our life easy let’s start installing npm.
Install npm and node js for Ubuntu and Windows
There are many different operating systems available in the world but we are covering Ubuntu and Windows to install node and npm in this example, If you have a Mac machine then please visit Latest Guide to Install npm and node js in Mac OS.
1. For Window Users
- Download the Windows installer from the Nodes.js website.
- Run the installer (the .msi file)
- Follow the prompts in the installer.
- Restart your computer. You won’t be able to run Node.js until you restart your computer.
- Test Node: Open the Windows Command Prompt, Powershell or a similar command line tool, and type
This should print a version number something like
- Test npm: To see if npm is installed, Open the Windows Command Prompt, Powershell or a similar command line tool, and type
This should print npm’s version number like
- That is it! You have your node and np[m installed.
- To update the version of npm/node you can run the following command
npm install npm --global
2. For Linux users (Ubuntu)
- Open the terminal and run the following commands to install nodejs and npm in Linux
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo apt-get install npm
- Test using following commands
This was the best way to install the nodejs and npm. If you are facing any problem or if you have any doubt about the topic you can comment below or contact us here.
Hope you liked it 🙂