Expo CLI issue on ubuntu - node.js

Question

I have downloaded expo cli on ubuntu 20.04 in my root directory but I am unable to download it globally!
I want expo cli to be there globally since it's not recommended to open code editor through root directory.
This is what my terminal shows!
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! syscall symlink
npm ERR! path ../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js
npm ERR! dest /usr/local/bin/yarn
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js' -> '/usr/local/bin/yarn'
npm ERR! { [Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js' -> '/usr/local/bin/yarn']
npm ERR! cause:
npm ERR! { Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js' -> '/usr/local/bin/yarn'
npm ERR! errno: -13,
npm ERR! code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR! syscall: 'symlink',
npm ERR! path: '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js',
npm ERR! dest: '/usr/local/bin/yarn' },
npm ERR! stack:
npm ERR! 'Error: EACCES: permission denied, symlink \'../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js\' -> \'/usr/local/bin/yarn\'',
npm ERR! errno: -13,
npm ERR! code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR! syscall: 'symlink',
npm ERR! path: '../lib/node_modules/yarn/bin/yarn.js',
npm ERR! dest: '/usr/local/bin/yarn' }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! The operation was rejected by your operating system.
npm ERR! It is likely you do not have the permissions to access this file as the current user
npm ERR!
npm ERR! If you believe this might be a permissions issue, please double-check the
npm ERR! permissions of the file and its containing directories, or try running
npm ERR! the command again as root/Administrator.
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /home/ritik/.npm/_logs/2020-07-03T19_44_34_737Z-debug.log

Answer 1

This is a permissions issue. you can use sudo to fix this but as a general recommendation never run npm install with sudo because it is a bad idea in general ,you can read more about this here
So To minimize this issue you can configure npm to use a different directory for global packages installations as mentioned in npm docs here
On the command line, In your home directory, create a directory for global installations:
mkdir ~/.npm-global
Configure npm to use the new directory path:
npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
In your preferred text editor, open or create a ~/.profile file and add this line:
export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
On the command line, update your system variables:
source ~/.profile
Finnaly try to install expo-cli globally :
npm install -g expo-cli
Or if you want a quick fix you can try this
open a terminal and run :
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /usr/local/lib/node_modules
try to install expo-cli , run :
npm i -g expo-cli
Also consider to avoid globall installs and use npx when possible read more here