I use Arch as my daily driver, for me it’s the near to perfection Linux distribution. Arch Linux it’s not for beginners, it’s not intended to, it requires a more mature approach but it gives the user lots of independence and freedom for customization, and last but not least the community is pretty active.

I do some packaging on AUR, it’s my way to give something back to the community. You can check my packages maybe you can find something useful.

Some of my packages are for Node.js and in my opinion all applications that require a system-wide installation should have a distribution package.

TL;DR

So which is the best way to install a system wide Node.js package on Arch Linux ?

The “package” is the word (cit.), a good habit is to make a package.

And the fastest way to do so is using an automated software, the structure of a npm package is quite simple so a software can do the work for you.

npm2arch allows you to make a package by using a one-liner command on the shell, and I must admit that who came up with this program should deserve a beer and a medal (and another beer), so at least give a star to the npm2arch repository on GitHub.

Installation

Assuming you have yaourt (or pacaur) already installed, if not you should do so, yaourt is a very useful tool to deal with packages from AUR.

To install npm2arch, just go with the usual:

yaourt -S npm2arch

Usage

For the full documentation you should check the npm page for npm2arch.

If you want a quick way to create to install a Node.js package, this is the command:

npm2archinstall npm-package-name

The package is built and at the end of the process and pacman will install the freshly built package.

For the community

Even better is to become a packager, in case you don’t find the package on AUR, why not to put a new package to help out the community ? Remember to always follow the submitting guidelines.

I have a script to clone/create a package from AUR, called it aur-clone.sh, and here is what it does:

#!/bin/bash

git clone ssh://aur@aur4.archlinux.org/$1.git

If a package doesn’t exist, it will crate an empty Git repository on the local folder. This script needs to have an SSH key pair configured for AUR, check the AUR wiki page.

Then let npm2arch do the work, launch this command inside the newly created git folder:

npm2PKGBUILD npm-package-name > PKGBUILD

There you go, you got a pre-made PKGBUILD file with all the necessary source code. Some other steps are needed to submit a good package, if you don’t know them check my article of how to create an Arch Linux package.

Make a .SRCINFO file with the command:

mksrcinfo

Add a .gitignore file removing the package and the src/ and pkg/ folders from source control:

src/
pkg/
*.tar.xz

When you are happy with your work push it to the AUR repository:

git push origin master

Now you have your package in the AUR repository, congratulations.