How to Install Golang in Linux

Install Golang In Linux Using Update-golang Script 

 Download the Update-golang script by cloning its repository from GitHub:

$ git clone https://github.com/udhos/update-golang

The above command will clone the contents of official update-golang repository in a local directory named update-golang. Cd into this directory:

$ cd update-golang

It is always recommended to check the integrity of a script downloaded from Internet. So let us do that by verifying the CHECKSUM value of update-golang script:

$ wget -qO hash.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/udhos/update-golang/master/update-golang.sh.sha256
$ sha256sum -c hash.txt

If you get an output as OK, you're good to go.

update-golang.sh: OK

After verifying the chekcsum, run the following command to install latest Golang version on your Linux machine:

$ sudo ./update-golang.sh
Sample output:

update-golang.sh: version 0.24
update-golang.sh: find_latest: found last release: 1.16.2
update-golang.sh: user: uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
update-golang.sh: RELEASE_LIST=https://golang.org/dl/
update-golang.sh: SOURCE=https://storage.googleapis.com/golang
update-golang.sh: DESTINATION=/usr/local
update-golang.sh: RELEASE=1.16.2
update-golang.sh: OS=linux
update-golang.sh: ARCH_PROBE=uname -m
update-golang.sh: ARCH=amd64
update-golang.sh: PROFILED=/etc/profile.d/golang_path.sh
update-golang.sh: CACHE=/usr/local
update-golang.sh: GOPATH=
update-golang.sh: DEBUG=
update-golang.sh: 
update-golang.sh: will install golang go1.16.2.linux-amd64 as: /usr/local/go
update-golang.sh: https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.16.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz is remote
--2021-03-30 06:02:35--  https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.16.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
Resolving storage.googleapis.com (storage.googleapis.com)... 2404:6800:4009:81f::2010, 2404:6800:4009:820::2010, 2404:6800:4009:81d::2010, ...
Connecting to storage.googleapis.com (storage.googleapis.com)|2404:6800:4009:81f::2010|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 129010536 (123M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘/usr/local/go1.16.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz’

/usr/local/go1.16.2.linux-amd64.t 100%[=============================================================>] 123.03M   501KB/s    in 5m 2s   

2021-03-30 06:07:40 (417 KB/s) - ‘/usr/local/go1.16.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz’ saved [129010536/129010536]

update-golang.sh: remove_old_link: not found symlink for old install
update-golang.sh: untar: tar -x -f /usr/local/go1.16.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
update-golang.sh: profile_path_add: issuing new /usr/local/go/bin to /etc/profile.d/golang_path.sh
update-golang.sh: profile_path_add: issuing $HOME/go/bin to /etc/profile.d/golang_path.sh
update-golang.sh: golang go1.16.2.linux-amd64 installed at: /usr/local/go
update-golang.sh: testing: /usr/local/go/bin/go version
update-golang.sh: unsudo: running_as_root:ostechnix: /usr/local/go/bin/go version
update-golang.sh: go version go1.16.2 linux/amd64
update-golang.sh: /usr/local/go/bin/go version: SUCCESS
update-golang.sh: unsudo: running_as_root:ostechnix: mktemp -t hello-tmpXXXXXXXX
update-golang.sh: unsudo: running_as_root:ostechnix: tee /tmp/hello-tmpqGBVcjhy.go
update-golang.sh: testing: /usr/local/go/bin/go run /tmp/hello-tmpqGBVcjhy.go
update-golang.sh: unsudo: running_as_root:ostechnix: /usr/local/go/bin/go run /tmp/hello-tmpqGBVcjhy.go
update-golang.sh: hello, world
update-golang.sh: /usr/local/go/bin/go run /tmp/hello-tmpqGBVcjhy.go: SUCCESS
update-golang.sh: running_as_root: yes
update-golang.sh: recursively forcing build cache [/home/ostechnix/.cache/go-build] ownership to 1000:1000
Install Golang In Linux Using Update-golang Script
Install Golang In Linux Using Update-golang Script

Check Golang version and environment information 

 To verify the installed Go version, run:

 go version
go version go1.16.2 linux/amd64

As you can see, Update-golang script has installed Go version 1.16.2. This is the latest, stable Go version at the time of writing this guide. To print Go environment information, run:

$ go env
Sample output:

GO111MODULE=""
GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCACHE="/home/ostechnix/.cache/go-build"
GOENV="/home/ostechnix/.config/go/env"
GOEXE=""
GOFLAGS=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOINSECURE=""
GOMODCACHE="/home/ostechnix/go/pkg/mod"
GONOPROXY=""
GONOSUMDB=""
GOOS="linux"
GOPATH="/home/ostechnix/go"
GOPRIVATE=""
GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"
GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOTMPDIR=""
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/linux_amd64"
GOVCS=""
GOVERSION="go1.16.2"
GCCGO="gccgo"
AR="ar"
CC="gcc"
CXX="g++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
GOMOD="/dev/null"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build883237217=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches"

Install Golang beta or release candidate (RC) version 

 By default, Update-golang script will install the latest stable version. If you want to install any beta or release candidate versions, explicitly mention the version like below: Install Golang beta:

$ sudo RELEASE=1.9beta1 ./update-golang.sh

Install release candidate (RC):

$ sudo RELEASE=1.11rc1 ./update-golang.sh

Golang per-user installation By default, Update-golang script installs Golang system-wide. If you want to install Golang for current user, simply create a installation directory, for example ~/golang:

$ mkdir ~/golang

And then install GO using command:

$ DESTINATION=~/golang PROFILED=~/.profile ./update-golang.sh

Please note that per-user installation does not need root or sudo permission. Prevent caching downloaded files As mentioned earlier, Update-golang script will keep the downloaded archives in /usr/local directory. If you don't want cache the archive files, simply use -declutter option:

$ sudo ./update-golang.sh -declutter

This time the installation files will not be cached. 

 Remove Golang

 To undo all steps done by Update-golang script, go to the cloned directory and run:

$ sudo ./update-golang.sh remove

This command will remove Go and all related entries from the $PATH.

update-golang.sh: version 0.24
update-golang.sh: find_latest: found last release: 1.16.2
update-golang.sh: remove: found symlink for old install: /usr/local/go1.16.2.linux-amd64
update-golang.sh: remove: removing symlink: /usr/local/go
update-golang.sh: remove: removing dir: /usr/local/go1.16.2.linux-amd64
update-golang.sh: profile_path_remove: removing old settings from: /etc/profile.d/golang_path.sh