The link in the previous answer is 404 here's what I found that worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04. I copy and pasted the steps one at a time to get things working. 

The NodeJS and NPM packages in the Ubuntu 14.04 repository can not be used because they are outdated.

Follow the instructions from the NodeJS Website:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_0.10 | sudo bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
sudo npm install -g npm

Then install Less and accessories:

 sudo npm install -g less less-plugin-clean-css

As you can see, I install version 0.10 of the deb and not anything else.

Option 1 mention in the following link worked for me. 

http://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/install-nodejs-ubuntu-14-04/

Use apt-get to install the build-essential package:

sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall

Employ a similar process to get libssl-dev:

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

You can install and update Node Version Manager, or nvm, by using cURL:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.31.0/install.sh | bash

You will be asked to close and reopen the terminal. To verify that nvm has been successfully installed after you reopen the terminal, use:

command -v nvm

That command will output nvm if the installation worked.

To download, compile and install the latest version of Node:

nvm install 5.0

In any new shell, you’ll need to tell nvm which version to use:

nvm use 5.0

To set a default Node.js version to be used in any new shell, use the alias default:

nvm alias default node