Linux Quick Start

If you plan to follow along on Linux, the tools should be straightforward.

These steps were tested on Ubuntu Desktop 18.10, Cosmic Cuttlefish, which uses Debian packages. If you use a different version of Linux, you will need to alter these steps to work with your distribution’s package manager.

There are two things you need to install: Node and Git.

Node

There are three ways to install node. Each is valid and has its own positives and negatives. I will try to give you enough information for you to make an intelligent choice. Review them and choose the one you prefer.

The first method is to install node from the Ubuntu command line. Open a terminal window and type the following command to see if you already have it:

node --version 

In my pristine system, I do not. But Ubuntu tells me exactly how to get it.

To install it, simply enter the command provided command, and it gets installed.

sudo apt-get install node 

Now when you type node --version, you should see that the default Ubuntu version was installed. In my case, I got 8.10.

Another way is to download directly from nodejs.org itself. Quite frankly, I do not recommend this method. However, if you like installing items from their official locations, feel free to head over to https://nodejs.org and click the big green button. I recommend downloading and installing the LTS, or long-term-support version. So that is the second way, however the first is better, though you probably are not getting the LTS version.

Fortunately, there is a third method, which is far more flexible. I describe that in the next section.