Puppeteer on Elementary OS

Question

I am attempting to use reveal-md to generate slide decks using markdown files. I followed the instructions to install reveal-md using npm npm install -g reveal-md.

One of the optional dependencies is puppeteer, which is a library that interfaces with Chrome/Chromium API's, and allows the user to print a slide deck to PDF.

reveal-md was installed successfully, but I get this error for puppeteer in my terminal:

ERROR: Failed to download Chromium r549031! Set 
"PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD" env variable to skip download.
{ Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir 
'/usr/lib/node_modules/reveal-md/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium'
  errno: -13,
  code: 'EACCES',
  syscall: 'mkdir',
  path: '/usr/lib/node_modules/reveal-md/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium' }
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: [email protected] 
(node_modules/reveal-md/node_modules/fsevents):
npm WARN notsup SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Unsupported platform for 
[email protected]: wanted {"os":"darwin","arch":"any"} (current: {"os":"linux","arch":"x64"})
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: [email protected] (node_modules/reveal-md/node_modules/puppeteer):
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: [email protected] install: `node install.js`
npm WARN optional SKIPPING OPTIONAL DEPENDENCY: Exit status 1

When I installed puppeteer manually via npm install -g puppeteer, I get a similar error:

ERROR: Failed to download Chromium r588429! Set "PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD" env variable to skip download.
{ Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/usr/lib/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium'
  errno: -13,
  code: 'EACCES',
  syscall: 'mkdir',
  path: '/usr/lib/node_modules/puppeteer/.local-chromium' }
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] install: `node install.js`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] install script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2018-09-13T00_07_56_867Z-debug.log

I even tried promoting myself to the root user and attempting the install command, but I received the same error.

I did a web search for "npm install puppeteer error," and I have seen several comments that this is probably an issue with npm permission. Is there a way I can fix this manually?

UPDATE 9/14/18:

The answer by @rmmcneely, below, is correct to fix my specific error. As a more permanent solution, I followed npm's instructions for changing the global prefix, in the config file, to point to a location I created in my home folder ~/.npm-global, which solves any permission issues with global packages.

Option 2

1. Back-up your computer before you start.
2. Make a directory for global installations: mkdir ~/.npm-global
3. Configure npm to use the new directory path: npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
4. Open or create a ~/.profile file and add this line: export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
5. Back on the command line, update your system variables: source ~/.profile
6. Test: Download a package globally without using sudo. npm install -g jshint

Answer 1

EACCES indicates a permission error generally, double check who owns your global node_modules folder in /usr/lib and try to either install with those permissions, or chown the dir.