We use NVM instead, where this is not an issue.
All quoted.
Set up a package root in your homedir to hold the Node "global" packages:
$ NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"
$ mkdir -p "$NPM_PACKAGES"
Set NPM to use this directory for its global package installs:
$ echo "prefix = $NPM_PACKAGES" >> ~/.npmrc
Configure your PATH and MANPATH to see commands in your $NPM_PACKAGES prefix by adding the following to your .bashrc:
# NPM packages in homedir
NPM_PACKAGES="$HOME/.npm-packages"
# Tell our environment about user-installed node tools
PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/bin:$PATH"
# Unset manpath so we can inherit from /etc/manpath via the `manpath` command
unset MANPATH # delete if you already modified MANPATH elsewhere in your configuration
MANPATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/share/man:$(manpath)"
# Tell Node about these packages
NODE_PATH="$NPM_PACKAGES/lib/node_modules:$NODE_PATH"
Now when you do an npm install -g
, NPM will install the libraries into ~/.npm-packages/lib/node_modules
link executable tools into ~/.npm-packages/bin
, which is in your PATH
.