FYI you don't need root at all. Just download the node tarball and unpack it somewhere in your user dir. Then add the following to your .profile (or .bashrc or

FYI you don't need root at all. Just download the node tarball and unpack it somewhere in your user dir. Then add the following to your .profile (or .bashrc or whatever you prefer): # add node.js bin to PATH npath=~/Applications/node-v4.2.1-linux-x64/bin if [ -d "$npath" ]; then PATH=$npath${PATH:+:$PATH} fi Then add the following to your .manpath if you want access to node manpages: # node.js MANPATH_MAP ~/Applications/node-v4.2.1-linux-x64/bin ~/Applications/node-v4.2.1-linux-x64/share/man MANPATH_MAP ~/Applications/node-v4.2.1-linux-x64/bin ~/Applications/node-v4.2.1-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/npm/man Then to install: npm install -g notify-cli Obviously you may need to update the particulars.