How to Install Yarn on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Yarn is a latest package manager for Node.js. It’s much faster than npm and installs packages simultaneously. Which allows to install, update, configure, and remove npm packages with improvements over npm. This guide covers how to install Yarn on Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa system and basic use of yarn to create a new project.

Prerequisite#

• Make sure that you are logged in as root or user with sudo privileges to install Yarn on Ubuntu 20.04.
• Before you go ahead, make sure you have installed Node.js on your Ubuntu system.

Step 1 – Add Repository#

Before the installation of yarn, you have to add the GPG key to verify the yarn packages. To import GPG type the following command on the terminal:

curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Step 2 – Enable Yarn Repository#

To install yarn on your system, you need enable the yarn repository. To do so, type the following command:

echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list

Step 3 – Install Yarn#

Once the repository is enabled, update the apt cache and install Yarn, type:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install yarn

Step 3 – Check Yarn Version#

To verify the installation check the version by typing:

yarn --version

1.22.4

Using Yarn#

At this stage, Yarn is installed on your Debian system. Now we will some basic usage of Yarn commands:

Create a new project#

You need to use yarn init command followed by the project name to create a new Yarn project. For example, to create a project with name demo type:

yarn init demo

You will be prompted for few questions. Give answers for it or you can skip by pressing Enter key.

It will create a package.json file which contains all the information which you provided.

For existing project you also can initiate yarn, navigate to directory and run:

yarn init

Adding dependency#

Add a package to your project, use the yarn add command followed by the package name:

yarn add PACKAGE_NAME

The above command will install latest version of the package and update the project’s package.json and yarn.lock files. For a specific version of package specify version as following:

yarn add PACKAGE_NAME@VERSION

Upgrading dependency#

You can update the packages by simple use of following command:

yarn upgrade

It will update all the project dependencies to their latest version. You can specify the package name and version for specific update.

Removing dependency#

To remove a package from the project’s dependencies, use the yarn remove command followed by the package name:

yarn remove PACKAGE_NAME

Installing all project dependencies#

To install all the dependencies of an existing project that are specified in the package.json file run:

yarn install

Conclusion#

Congratulations! The yarn has been successfully installed on your system Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. This guide also covers use of common commands of yarn. You can learn more about Yarn at documentation page.

If you have any questions or suggestion, leave a comment below.