Answer by cchamberlain for nodejs vs node on ubuntu 12.04

How about using the official instructions from the nodejs site:

For v7:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_7.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

For v6:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_6.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

For v4:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

I've tested these from Windows bash (via subsystem for Linux - 14.04) and raspbian (ARM Debian based). Running sudo apt-get install -y nodejs without first running the setup script will result in you getting node 0.10.

If you are planning on installing native npm modules requiring build, also run:

sudo apt install -y build-essential

^{Note: this is the recommended path for any Debian based distro across all architectures.}