Category: Raspberry Pi

I needed to install Node.js on the Raspberry Pi and searching the web gave me so many difficult ways to do it. But since node.js now distributed as a binary for the Raspberry Pi, it’s pretty easy.

First, go to http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/ and find the latest Raspberry Pi release. It’s the file ending in: linux-arm-pi.tar.gz

Then on the Raspberry Pi, update the package list

sudo apt-get update

Update packages

sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Create a directory to install node:

sudo mkdir /opt/node

Change directories to a temporary directory.

cd /tmp

Download the latest release you found at http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/

wget http://nodejs.org/dist/latest/node-v0.10.17-linux-arm-pi.tar.gz

Uncompress it:

tar xvzf node-v0.10.17-linux-arm-pi.tar.gz

Copy it to your new directory:

sudo cp -r node-v0.10.17-linux-arm-pi/* /opt/node

Then add it to your environment variables by opening or creating .bash_profile in your home directory. (You nano if you can’t use vi.):

cd
vi .bash_profile

Add the following to your .bash_profile

PATH=$PATH:/opt/node/bin
export PATH

After saving the file, you’re all set!

If you’re in the US like me and you start coding on your Raspberry Pi, you might quickly realize that when typing the pound key # you get the currency symbol: £

This is because the Raspberry Pi defaults to the British Keyboard layout. To change this, as sudo edit the file:

etc/default/keyboard

Change XKBLAYOUT=”gb” to XKBLAYOUT=”us”

# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE

# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.

XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS=""

BACKSPACE="guess"

Then restart your Pi.