Before we start installing React and the package list, we need to have node.js installed on our system.

In Linux (Debian-based system), the process of installation is pretty simple.

First, we need to add PPA from the node.js official website by using the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_7.x | sudo -E bash -

Once it is set up, we can install node.js with the following command:

$ apt-get install nodejs 

Now let's check the node and npm versions, as follows:

$ npm -v
  4.1.2 
$ node -v
  V7.7.4 

In our setup, we use the aforementioned version, but the node version around v7.x should be fine, and for npm, v4.x should work fine.