Rasperian Buster has a working desktop out of the box, but to run NodeJS Roosevelt and Java, some installations will need to be done first.

INSTALLING JAVA JDK / JRE

This is pretty simple. I like to install both the Dev Kit (JDK) and the Runtime (JRE) elements. To do so on Buster, simply request the default packages:

sudo apt install default-jdk default-jre

Let Apt do it’s work. Once done you should be able to verify java is installed and available:

java --version

My installed version reported openjdk 11.0.7 2020-04-14

INSTALLING NodeJS and NVM

Next, NodeJS will be installed and built from git

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | sudo bash -

Installing NVM follows a similar process

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash

Now the Pi is setup and ready to install other helper applications.

INSTALLING ROOSEVELT SCAFFOLDING

For this project, I selected Roosevelt based on successful prior experience with a complex NodeJS / Java web application built on Roosevelt. Follow the prompts to create the basic application.

I selected a directory called lakedash and an app named app .

npx mkroosevelt

SETTING UP THE BASIC APP FRAMEWORK

Change directories to the path lakedash/app (or whatever you picked).

cd  lakedash/app

Now, run the node install process to download and localize the packages used by Roosevelt. It’s easy.. just do it.

npm i

Starting up the simple little app in development mode.

npm run dev

Next phase will be setting up some swap space by re-partitioning the little Pi’s SD card.