Nitrous.IO (referral link - non-referral link) is a in-browser development environment built atop Amazon's AWS.
It gives you a linux shell in the browser, as well as a text editor and collaboration features.
I wanted to learn more about the service, so I decided to create an account and set up Meteor.js. Since i'm not a linux guru, it took me a bit of time. I'm writing this post for two reasons. One: to document what I did in case I want to reference it in the future, and two: the off chance my experience with the process can help someone else.
Note: I used MongoHQ as my database service.
Part 1
Getting the various SaaS accounts and database in order. Each of the below services make it easy to create accounts, so I won't go into detail.
1) Create Nitrous.IO account
2) Provision a Node.js box in Nitrous.IO
3) Create an account and database in MongoHQ (make note of the host, port, database username, database password after the DB is created)
Part 2
Install Meteor.js (as explained in Meteor's Quick Start guide)
In the Nitrous.IO browser console run the command:
curl https://install.meteor.com | /bin/sh
After installation, Meteor will attempt "Writing a launcher script to /usr/local/bin/meteor for your convenience." but can't do it since you don't have sudo access in Nitrous.IO