Node.js Bootstrapping Guide

Windows

A Boxstarter script can be used for easy setup of Windows systems with all the required prerequisites for Node.js development. This script will install the following Chocolatey packages:

• Git for Windows with the git and Unix tools added to the PATH
• Python 2.x
• Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools with Visual C++ workload
• NetWide Assembler

To install Node.js prerequisites using Boxstarter WebLauncher, just open this link with Internet Explorer or Edge browser on the target machine.

Alternatively, you can use PowerShell. Run those commands from an elevated PowerShell terminal:

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Force
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('http://boxstarter.org/bootstrapper.ps1'))
get-boxstarter -Force
Install-BoxstarterPackage https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nodejs/node/master/tools/bootstrap/windows_boxstarter -DisableReboots

Entire installation will take up about 8 GB of disk space.

Linux

For building Node.js on Linux, following packages are required (note, that this can vary from distribution to distribution):

• git
• python
• gcc-c++ or g++
• make

To bootstrap Node.js on Linux, run in terminal:

• OpenSUSE: sudo zypper install git python gcc-c++ make
• Fedora: sudo dnf install git python gcc-c++ make
• Ubuntu, Debian: sudo apt-get install git python g++ make

macOS

To install required tools on macOS, run in terminal:

xcode-select --install