Why does Ubuntu have old versions of nodejs and npm in their apt-get package manager?

Question

When I install nodejs and npm with apt-get

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs modejs-legacy npm
I have the versions

I get the following versions

npm -v
1.3.10

nodejs -v
v0.10.25

I know how to update these manually, but why does the apt-get package manager have old versions of these packages?

Answer 1

It's better to use the ppa from nodesource. They have done a great job keeping it updated and offering not only LTS but also latest versions of node available. https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/#debian-and-ubuntu-based-linux-distributions

As easy as running this from your cli:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_4.x | sudo -E bash - sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

UPDATE:

The reason WHY the package manager has old versions of the binaries is due to the fact it takes time for the maintainers of the provided packages to properly build and test new ones with updated versions.

The good thing is that you can consume and install packages from other repositories (ppa).