Safe to remove /usr/local/bin/node?

Question

In the past I installed Node.js. Now I tried updating it following this guide and ended up having two versions of it, node on version 0.10.7 and nodejs on version 0.12.7. To clear this up I wanted to remove it completely and reinstall it. apt-get remove nodejs worked fine, but not apt-get remove node:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'node' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

But:

$ which node
/usr/local/bin/node

Is it safe to remove this file or will I have leftovers lurking around somewhere else?

Answer 1

you are installing node from binaries which is self installation (not using ubuntu software center).

When you do self installation of node usually you create a symbolic link to /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin to put in the path for everyone system-wide.

If you installed new version of node all you have to do is to remove the symlink of the old one and place the new one instead.

 ln -s /path/where/node/installed/bin/node /usr/bin/node 

Remove of course the one in /usr/local/bin or /usr/bin before.

Answer 2

Yes. It is safe to remove /usr/local/bin/node folder but you have to remove or edit Nodejs from the PATH in ~/.bashrc.