How to update npm

This will update npm using npm itself:

sudo npm install npm -g

If you are stuck, try sudo npm update npm -g. All credit goes to Tim Castelijns. I have tested it on ubuntu 14.04, npm 1.3.10

Note that if you are using nvm for managing multiple versions in your local dev environment for e.g. testing purposes, all your installed versions (listed by nvm ls) are in ~/.nvm, hence you just omit system wide installation (i.e. omit sudo):

npm install npm -g

DEBIAN ENTERPRISE

For full enterprise practice consider nodesource.com:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup | sudo bash –

as described here.

OTHER ENTERPRISE

For non-debian distributions check out on the node github wiki
https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/installing-node.js-via-package-manager download page https://nodejs.org/en/download/

For historical understanding: Chis Lea was maintaining his PPA but now joined forces with nodesource.