I’m using Opensuse Linux with Balena Cli.
When I first install nvm (Node Version Manager), then install Balena Cli as standalone, I get a weird situation where all npm packages are installed into the balena-cli bin folder. It really seems to depend on the path which comes first.
Steps to reproduce:
# nvm installation
$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.4/install.sh | bash
$ source ~/.bashrc
$ nvm install 24
$ nvm use 24
# balena-cli installation
$ mkdir -p ~/bin
$ cd ~/bin
$ wget https://github.com/balena-io/balena-cli/releases/download/v25.1.3/balena-cli-v25.1.3-linux-x64-standalone.tar.gz
$ tar -xf balena-cli-v25.1.3-linux-x64-standalone.tar.gz
$ echo 'export PATH=~/bin/balena/bin:$PATH' >> .bashrc
# install a npm package
$ source ~/.bashrc
$ npm install http-server --global
$ which http-server
/home/user/bin/balena/bin/http-server
The workaround would be to change the order in the final PATH line of .bashrc:
export PATH=$PATH:~/bin/balena/bin
Of course, I could just remove the balena-cli standalone installation and install balena-cli also via npm, that would solve the issue in another way.
Just leaving this post out here in case anyone sees weird files in their balena-cli bin folder. I guess Balena team can do very little about how Node.js nvm and npm are detecting the environment.