Switching from brew to nvm for node install

Many people use a simple “brew install node” to get node running on their machines. However, today I discovered that all global node modules could not be updated properly. I got errors like:

npm ERR! error rolling back Error: Refusing to delete: /usr/local/bin/npm not in /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm
npm ERR! error rolling back at clobberFail (/usr/local/Cellar/node/0.10.26/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/gently-rm.js:41:12)
npm ERR! error rolling back at next (/usr/local/Cellar/node/0.10.26/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/gently-rm.js:27:14)
npm ERR! error rolling back at /usr/local/Cellar/node/0.10.26/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/gently-rm.js:36:12
npm ERR! error rolling back at Object.oncomplete (fs.js:107:15)

Even after removing the symlink and adding a new one, updating brew, force uninstall and install node again, nothing seemed to work.

The only solution I found was to install nvm (Node Version Manager). In order to do so, I first uninstalled what brew installed with:

brew remove –force node
rm -r /usr/local/lib/node_modules

Installation of nvm is straight forward as in (I like to always grab the git one if possible):

git clone https://github.com/creationix/nvm.git ~/.nvm

Then all is left is to add the below show line to your ~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, etc. file:

source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

After you finished editing the file, simple restart the terminal and you are all set. Full instructions on the usage o nvm can be found over at the nvm project page.

There you have it. A clean install, even with any node version you want to run and many more options then the “normal” brew installation.