echo 'export PATH=$HOME/local/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc . ~/.bashrc mkdir ~/local mkdir ~/node-latest-install cd ~/node-latest-install curl http://nodejs.org/dist/node-latest.tar.gz | tar xz --strip-components=1 ./configure --prefix=~/local make install # ok, fine, this step probably takes more than 30 seconds... # This line does not work anymore as the script has moved to https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh # curl https://www.npmjs.org/install.sh | sh curl https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh | sh # this works