The latest version of Node was segfaulting on my Linode. Here’s how to install a specific version.
I want Node 0.5.0, the latest NPM and CoffeeScript 1.0.1.
NodeJS 0.5.0 From a Tag
git clone https://github.com/joyent/node.git
cd node
git checkout "v0.5.0"
export JOBS=2 # optional, sets number of parallel commands.
./configure
make
make install
Latest NPM
curl https://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh
CoffeeScript 1.0.1
npm config set registry https://registry.npmjs.org
npm install -g coffee-script@1.0.1