Problems installing npm on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

When trying to install npm on Ubuntu 16.04 with a simple sudo apt-get install npm I get the following errors:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 npm : Depends: nodejs but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-abbrev (>= 1.0.4) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-ansi (>= 0.3.0-2) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-ansi-color-table but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-archy but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-block-stream but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-fstream (>= 0.1.22) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-fstream-ignore but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-github-url-from-git but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-glob (>= 3.1.21) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-graceful-fs (>= 2.0.0) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-inherits but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-ini (>= 1.1.0) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-lockfile but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-lru-cache (>= 2.3.0) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-minimatch (>= 0.2.11) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-mkdirp (>= 0.3.3) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-gyp (>= 0.10.9) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-nopt (>= 3.0.1) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-npmlog but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-once but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-osenv but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-read but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-read-package-json (>= 1.1.0) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-request (>= 2.25.0) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-retry but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-rimraf (>= 2.2.2) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-semver (>= 2.1.0) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-sha but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-slide but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-tar (>= 0.1.18) but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-underscore but it is not going to be installed
       Depends: node-which but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I checked if node is installed:

$ which nodejs
/usr/bin/nodejs
$ which node
/usr/bin/node

And from here I'm kinda lost. Does anybody know what to do from here?

Answer 1

I recommend you to reinstall Nodejs since

npm : Depends: nodejs but it is not going to be installed

in the error says nodejs is not installed (not installed properly).

I suggest you to download the Source code that is node-v6.9.1.tar.gz from https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Then

tar -zxvf  node-v6.9.1.tar.gz

cd node-v6.9.1

./configure

make

sudo make install

Nodejs and NPM will be installed on your computer with the above steps.

You can verify the installation using node -v and npm -v on the command prompt.

Answer 2

In the end I solved it by installing nvm (adjust version number to current version):

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.32.1/install.sh | bash
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"  # OR LOG OUT AND BACK IN AGAIN

I then used nvm to install the latest version of node, which also installed npm with it.

nvm install node

I hope this helps someone else with the same problem.

Answer 3

Refer to Node Package Manager got corrupted

You can do the following

sudo apt-get remove nodejs npm ## remove existing nodejs and npm packages
sudo apt-get install curl  
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs  

This works on my Ubuntu 16.04.2