sudo: npm: command not found in WSL

Question

I'm trying to install globally some packages for my Unix environment on Windows with WSL. I use nvm to manage the different versions of Node.js.

The problem is while using the sudo command before a global npm install :

sudo npm install --global prompt-pure

I get an error: sudo: npm: command not found !

Doing a simple npm install --global pure-prompt will work, but as I'm not super user, the global installation ends up with a permission error.

How can I fix this annoying problem and keep nvm ?

Thanks by advance

Answer 1

When you try to run sudo npm, it tries to run the npm binary file /usr/bin/npm but your binary is located in a different place, which can be found running which npm.

Example: /home/damo/.nvm/versions/node/v8.11.1/bin/npm

The solution is to create a link in /usr/bin/ pointing to the actual binary:

sudo ln -s "$(which npm)" /usr/bin/npm

You can also add the following link so you can run sudo node

sudo ln -s "$(which node)" /usr/bin/node