How to install Golang on a Linux System

Google created the compiled, statically typed programming language known as Go. Besides, you must be wondering why the language is called “Go.” The language has two names: Go and Golang. Go is the name of the language. The name “Golang” was given to the website since its initial domain name was golang.org. Are you looking to harness the power of Golang on your Linux system? No worries, your search is over. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through how to install Golang on a Linux system.

The steps to download Go are as shown below: Other guides can accessed here: How to install and configure Apache Cassandra on Linux Server and how to install Gradle on Ubuntu

Steps to Installing Golang on Linux Machine

Step 1: Downloading Go binary files

To obtain the most recent Go binary from the official download website, use curl or wget.

curl -O https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz

The Go version you should download is 1.18.3. However, if necessary, you can use any other version in its place. The output is as shown below:

root@ubuntu:/home/rdgmh# curl -O https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  135M  100  135M    0     0   286k      0  0:08:03  0:08:03 --:--:--  362k
root@ubuntu:/home/rdgmh# 

Step 2: Taking out data from the tar.gz file

To open the package, use tar. Subsequently, this opens and expands the downloaded tar.gz file. Create a folder with the package name using the tar tool and the following command:

tar -xvf go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz

next, move the folder to  /usr/local

sudo mv go /usr/local

Go is now in your $PATH for Linux thanks to the Go package, which is located in /usr/local.

Step 3: Setting paths

Next step in installing Golang on Linux is setting paths. Hence, we must create some paths for Go. The paths listed in this step are all positioned relative to the /usr/local directory where the Go installation is located. In order to tell Go where to look for its files, the root value must first be set. Therefore, to open the file in your preferred editor, run the command below:

sudo vim ~/.profile

At the document’s end opened by the command above, include the following lines:

export GOPATH=$HOME/work
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$GOPATH/bin

You can use any directory in place of $HOME/work. You will be able to use the Go language’s features from this location.

save and close the file then refresh with the command below:

source ~/.profile

Step 4: Verify that Golang is installed on Linux

Checking to see if your installation was successful is always a smart idea. However, you may accomplish this by looking up the Golang language version currently installed on your Linux machine.

go --version

The terminal will show the Go version currently installed on your computer just as shown in the screenshot below:

Summary

We installed Go on a Linux system by following a series of steps as described above. By following the step-by-step guide, you should know how to install Golang on a Linux system.