Installing node.js on Debian 6.0
debian, installation, linux, node.js
Solution
Although, as ArjunShankar says, you should normally use a pre-built package. Node.js is rather too fast moving for Debian packages to keep up. I would strongly recommend that you do your own installs until such a time as Node settles down. For example, there was an unexpected update recently that fixes an important security loophole - you do not want to be dependent on a package that is for an out-of-date version of Debian when things need to move fast.
Instead, you should install from source.
You can download the source archive direct unpack it into a temporary folder and follow the instructions on the Node Github page. Alternatively, if you are confident with GIT, you can use that to grab the source - again to a temporary folder & follow the installation instructions.
There are a number of software dependencies for compiling so you need to make sure that you have them first - they should all be in the Debian apt packages. See http://blog.timmattison.com/archives/2011/04/26/installing-nodejs-couchdb-and-npm-on-debian-the-easy-way/ or http://sekati.com/etc/install-nodejs-on-debian-squeeze for further information.
It will take a few minutes to do the compile so be patient.
Once you've done it once, upgrades are also easy - just repeat the download/compile process.
Node.js installations now include the npm tool so installing libraries and other code is extremely simple.
Problem
So well, I have a vserver with Debian 6.0. Now I would like to install Node.js, but none of the tutorials on the web seem to work. I have tried all of the results google gives me when I enter "install node.js on linux" I mostly failed because I had no idea how to install the dependencies (I'm new to linux btw) How to install node.js on a Debian system that was just setup (so no programs already installed on it and such)?