Installing NodeJS on RHEL(4)?

Question

To the kind people of SO,

I am having trouble finding any resources for installing NodeJS (current or earlier version) onto a RHEL4 box. I am starting to doubt if this is even possible as the OS dates back 10 years now. The machine has Python 2.3.4 and GCC 3.4.6, if that's of any help.

I am hoping someone here could maybe point me in the right direction, I feel I may be grasping for straws at this point.

Answer 1

There is only a handful of possibility, since from comment, you said upgrading the box is not a option. (I d like you to know there is security implications too, you should have a up-to-date OS):

• Install the official way, which need yum and sudo rights.
• Compile from source, which in theory doesn't need sudo rights nor yum.

Note that, even if compiling from source should be easy:

wget https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v4.x/node-v4.4.7-linux-x86.tar.gz
tar -xzf node-v4.4.7-linux-x86.tar.gz
cd ./node-v4.4.7-linux-x86
./configure #Options
make
make install

You will almost always run into issues because of not installed or outdated dependencies. At this step, you may want to track down a previously supported version of node.js for RHEL4 (0.10.x?), or try to make a case about upgrading the box.