This is an updated version of a previous guide.

Installation

Node.js is currently available in Debian unstable (sid) (version 0.6.19) AND Debian experimental (version 0.10.1!!!). This guide shows you how to install from experimental. If you want to install from sid, please see previous guide. (Adding experimental to sources.list doesn’t need apt-pinning, sid does.)

/etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib
#deb-src http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib

deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian experimental main contrib non-free

Then, complete installation by running apt-get:

apt-get update && apt-get -t experimental install nodejs

Link to /usr/bin/node

Currently nodejs package in Debian sid provides only /usr/bin/nodejs, and there exists lots of scripts which depend on /usr/bin/node, so they break when using node.js in Debian w/ default installation. Binary naming is caused by package node (Amateur Packet Radio Node program), which also provides /usr/bin/node. Debian package policy forbids conflicting binary naming, so node.js is renamed.

You can fix this in a Debian way by using update-alternatives.

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/node node /usr/bin/nodejs 10

Now node.js binary is linked to /usr/bin/node.

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