E: Unable to locate package npm

Encountered this in Ubuntu for Windows, try running first

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

then

sudo apt-get install npm

From the official Node.js documentation:

A Node.js package is also available in the official repo for Debian Sid (unstable), Jessie (testing) and Wheezy (wheezy-backports) as "nodejs". It only installs a nodejs binary.

So, if you only type sudo apt-get install nodejs , it does not install other goodies such as npm.

You need to type:

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_14.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Optional: install build tools

To compile and install native add-ons from npm you may also need to install build tools:

sudo apt-get install -y build-essential

More info: Docs NodeJs