Setup a Golang Environment on Ubuntu

In this post I will demonstrate how to setup a golang environment on Ubuntu.

Get the sources:

Get the latest stable release golang tarball from https://golang.org/dl/ and download to the directory path of choice, and extract the archive:

$ cd /tmp
$ wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.11.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ tar -xf go1.11.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Once the archive is extracted, set root permissions and move it to the path where your other executable binaries reside:

$ sudo chown -R root:root ./go
$ sudo mv go /usr/local/

Cleanup the downloaded archive:

$ rm -rf go1.*.tar.gz

Adjust your path variables in your ~/.profile and append the following:

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

Source your profile, or open a new tab:

$ source ~/.profile

Test if you can return the version:

$ go version
go version go1.11.2 linux/amd64

Create a simple golang app that prints a string to stdout:

$ cd ~/
$ mkdir -p go/src/hello
$ cd go/src/hello
$ vim app.go

Add the following golang code:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Printf("Hello!\n")
}

Build the binary:

$ go build

Run it:

$ ./app
Hello!