New to Node.js?

That's okay! We'll get you pointed in the right direction.

"Node.js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast, scalable network applications. Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices."

More simply put, Node.js allows us to quickly and efficiently run JavaScript code outside the browser, making it possible to use the same language on both the frontend and the backend.

What OS do I need?

Node.js will install on most major Operating systems. MacOSX, many flavors of Linux, and Windows are supported.

Now, lets take a look at what OS you have. Please choose from the following for instructions on setting up Node.js:

I have Mac OSX

I have Linux

I have Windows

Install on OSX

Using a package:

Simply download Macintosh Installer.

Using homebrew:

brew install node

Using macports:

port install nodejs

Install on Linux

Ubuntu, Mint

Example install:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties python g++ make
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

It installs current stable Node on the current stable Ubuntu. Quantal (12.10) users may need to install the software-properties-common package for the add-apt-repository command to work: sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

There is a naming conflict with the node package (Amateur Packet Radio Node Program), and the nodejs binary has been renamed from node to nodejs. You'll need to symlink /usr/bin/node to /usr/bin/nodejs or you could uninstall the Amateur Packet Radio Node Program to avoid that conflict.

Fedora

Node.js and npm are available in Fedora 18 and later. Just use your favorite graphical package manager or run this on a terminal to install both npm and node:

sudo yum install npm

RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux 6

Node.js and npm are available from the Fedora Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) testing repository. If you haven't already done so, first enable EPEL and then run the following command to install node and npm:

su -c 'yum --enablerepo=epel-testing install npm'

Arch Linux

Node.js is available in the Community Repository.

pacman -S nodejs

Gentoo

Node.js is available in official gentoo portage tree. You have to unmask it.

# emerge -aqv --autounmask-write nodejs
# etc-update
# emerge -aqv nodejs

Debian, LMDE

For Debian sid (unstable), Node.js is available in the official repo.

For Debian Wheezy (stable), Node.js is available in wheezy-backports. To install backports, add this to your sources.list (/etc/apt/sources.list):

deb http://YOURMIRROR.debian.org/debian wheezy-backports main

Then run:

apt-get update
apt-get install nodejs

For Debian Squeeze (oldstable), your best bet is to compile node by yourself (as root):

apt-get install python g++ make
mkdir ~/nodejs && cd $_
wget -N http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz
tar xzvf node-latest.tar.gz && cd `ls -rd node-v*`
./configure
make install

openSUSE & SLE

Node.js stable repos list. Also node.js is available in openSUSE:Factory repository.

Available RPM packages for: openSUSE 11.4, 12.1, Factory and Tumbleweed; SLE 11 (with SP1 and SP2 variations).

Example install on openSUSE 12.1:

sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/nodejs/openSUSE_12.1/ NodeJSBuildService
sudo zypper in nodejs nodejs-devel

FreeBSD and OpenBSD

Node.js is available through the ports system.

/usr/ports/www/node

Development versions are also available using ports

cd /usr/ports/www/node-devel/ && make install clean

or packages on FreeBSD

pkg_add -r node-devel

The Node Package Manager is not installed along with Node.js by default on FreeBSD and will be needed for development and installing dependencies.

/usr/ports/www/npm

Also note that FreeBSD 10 using clang will conflict with the occasional build scrpt (which assumes gcc) using node-gyp, and can be resolved by setting an envvar.

CXX=c++

Install on Windows

Using a package:

Simply download Windows Installer.

Using chocolatey to install Node:

cinst nodejs

or for full install with NPM:

cinst nodejs.install

On to Sails.js!

Once Node.js is installed on your system, you can go ahead and install Sails.

Further help!

We know that sometimes things don't go as planned. If you still have any issue with this, please feel free to visit Node.js's IRC Channel or our own IRC Channel.