When I run node, nothing happens, the same with forever

bash, forever, node.js, ubuntu

Solution

There was something wrong with `apt-get`, so when installing node, it didn't actually install node, but it did put a program in the path that did seemingly nothing.

I uninstalled it with

`apt-get purge node`

Then, I downloaded the 64-bit linux binary from here: http://nodejs.org/download/

And I extracted it with `tar -xvf filename`, then I set that `directory/bin` to the path with:

`PATH=$PATH:/directory/to/node/bin`

And now it works fine. The forever issue was because the node installed wasn't node at all, but instead a 30kb program of some sort, I don't know.

Here's the information about the program that was installed via `apt-get install node`:

Package: node
Priority: optional
Section: universe/hamradio
Installed-Size: 38
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Debian Hamradio Maintainers <debian-hams@lists.debian.org>
Architecture: all
Version: 0.3.2-7.4
Depends: ax25-node
Conflicts: nodejs-legacy
Filename: pool/universe/n/node/node_0.3.2-7.4_all.deb
Size: 1284
MD5sum: 7385a0f5916e03d9143459ca4706f0ec
SHA1: bf7aa087db81475636897ff39de344754ce1415b
SHA256: 9756770f771bcc4183cffa622f89e21a585be96bd4de27024b0a7cb167f310ad
Description-en: Amateur Packet Radio Node program (transitional package)
 The existing node package has been renamed to ax25-node. This transitional
 package exists to ease the upgrade path for existing users.
Description-md5: 1278ed271672fd829c99361f93f468da
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu

So, I also found that the correct way to install `node` with `apt-get` is `apt-get install nodejs`.

Problem

I installed both node.js and forever.js and when I run them in my terminal (bash on Ubuntu 14.04), nothing happens. So, it looks like: ``` #node # ``` or ``` #forever #forever --help #forever listall # ``` Everything else not node-related runs fine.

Original source