How to install Go [golang] on Ubuntu Linux

• Free and open source
• Statically typed
• Memory safety
• Garbage collection
• structural typing
• CSP-style
• Python/JS like readability and usability
• Strong support for mulicore and networked systems
• Concurrency, and more.

Popular Linux apps such as Docker, Kubernetes, and many more are written in Go. Let us see how to install Go [Golang] Ubuntu Linux.

Warning: Please use only one method to install Golang on Ubuntu.

Installing Golang using snap on Ubuntu (method # 1)

Open the terminal window and then type the following snap command to install the latest Go lang:
$ sudo snap install go --classic
This will install Go programming language compiler, linker, and stdlib. You will see confirmation as follows:

go 1.15.5 from Michael Hudson-Doyle (mwhudson) installedk

Now, jump to testing section.

Using apt-get/apt command to install Go (method # 2)

First, update Ubuntu Linux packages for security and apply pending patches. Run:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
Search for Go:
$ sudo apt search golang-go
$ sudo apt search gccgo-go
Install Golang version 1.13 on Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS:
$ sudo apt install golang-go

It is time to test Go, see testing section below.

How to Install Go binary on Ubuntu from Google (method # 3)

Visit official downloads page and grab file using either wget command or curl command:
# let us download a file with curl on Linux command line #
$ VERSION="1.15.5" # go version
$ ARCH="amd64" # go archicture
$ curl -O -L "https://golang.org/dl/go${VERSION}.linux-${ARCH}.tar.gz"
$ ls -l
Extract the tarball using the tar command:
$ tar -xf "go${VERSION}.linux-${ARCH}.tar.gz"
$ ls -l
$ cd go/
$ ls -l
$ cd ..
Set up the permissions using the chown command/chmod command:
$ sudo chown -R root:root ./go
Use the mv command to move go binary to /usr/local/ directory:
$ sudo mv -v go /usr/local
Finally edit the ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile:
$ vim ~/.bash_profile
Append the following 2 lines:

# set up Go lang path #
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$GOPATH/bin

Save and close the file when using vim. Run the source command into the current bash/shell to load environment variables on Ubuntu:
$ source ~/.bash_profile
$ go version

Finally, test the installation.

How to display Go version on Ubuntu

Execute the following command:
$ go version

Testing your Go environment by writing simple program

Create a new file called hello.go:
$ vim hello.go
Append the following code:

// Hello Word in Go by Vivek Gite
package main
 
// Import OS and fmt packages
import ( 
	"fmt" 
	"os" 
)
 
// Let us start
func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, world!")  // Print simple text on screen
    fmt.Println(os.Getenv("USER"), ", Let's be friends!") // Read Linux $USER environment variable 
}

Compile and run Go program:
$ go run hello.go
Build/compile packages and dependencies:
$ go build hello.go
$ ls -l hello*
$ ./hello

Basic directory structure (workspace) for your Go project on Ubuntu

First make a directory named go:
$ cd
$ mkdir -p -v go/src/my-project
$ vim go/src/my-project/test.go
Build it:
$ go build go/src/my-project/test.go
Run it:
$ ./test

IDEs for Go software development

I use vim as IDE (integrated development environment) along with vim-go plugin, which provides Go programming language support. But, you may want to use easy to use GUI/TUI based IDEs such as Emacs, Gedit, Nano, GoLand, and others.

Setting up variables in go

The syntax is

// we use var that declares one or more variables with or without type
var name type
var name = value
//shorthand syntax 
name := value
 
// define i
var i int
// set value for i
i = 10
// we can also set value as follows
var y = 5
var msg = "Remote host found."
var foo, bar int = 100, 200
// shorthand syntax
vehicle := "Mercedes"
age := 52
// Bool true or false
var is_job_failed = false
// print it
fmt.Printf("%d %d %s\n", i,y,msg)
fmt.Println(foo)
fmt.Println(age)
fmt.Println(vehicle)

Where type can be int, int32, int64, float32, float64, bool, string and others.

Creating constants is easy in go

We use the const keyword to declare a constant value. We can set it to character, string, boolean, and numeric values. For instance:

// syntax 
const var type = value
// define constant  pi with as float32 with 3.14159 value
const pi float32 = 3.14159
// create constant string variable 
const error_msg string = "Docker is not installed"
fmt.Println(pi)
fmt.Println(error_msg)

Simple for loop in golang

package main
 
import "fmt"
 
func main() {
    // single condition for loop
    m := 1
    for m <= 5 {
        fmt.Printf("Welcome %d times.\n",m)
        m = m + 1
    }
    // classic for loop example 
    for i := 6; i <= 10; i++ {
        fmt.Printf("Welcome %d times.\n",i)
    }
}

Using If and else in go

The syntax is:

if condition {
  // do-something when condition is true
}
else {
  // do-something when condition is false 
}

Here is our go for loop example but with condition added :

package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
    for i := 1; i <= 10; i++ {
        fmt.Printf("Welcome %d times.\n",i)
	// break out of for loop when i is 5
	if i == 5 {
		break
	}
    }
}

In this example, read int number from your keyboard and print message:

package main
 
import "fmt"
 
func main() {
    var n int
    fmt.Print("Enter your number: ")
    fmt.Scanf("%d", &n)
    fmt.Println(n)
    if n >= 0 {
	    fmt.Println("Number is positive")
    } else {
	    fmt.Println("Number is negative")
    }
 
}

Creating array in Go lang

package main
 
import "fmt"
 
func main() {
    // define array named domains as string type
    var domains [2]string
    fmt.Println("current values for array:", domains)
 
    // add value and print it
    domains[0] = "cyberciti.biz"
    fmt.Println("Set value : ", domains)
    fmt.Println("Get value for 0 element : ", domains[0])
    // get array length 
    fmt.Println("Array length : ", len(domains))
    // add one more value 
    domains[1] = "nixcraft.com"
    // use for loop to print our array
    for i := 0; i < len(domains); i++ {
	    fmt.Println("Get value for element ", i, " is ", domains[i])
    }
}

It will produce output as follows:

current values for array: [ ]
Set value :  [cyberciti.biz ]
Get value for 0 element :  cyberciti.biz
Array lenght :  2
Get value for element  0  is  cyberciti.biz
Get value for element  1  is  nixcraft.com

Creating user defined function in Golang

package main
 
import "fmt"
// define function named total that accept int values and returns int 
func total(x int, y int) int {
    return x + y
}
 
func main() {
    // call our function and store result in the answer variable 
    answer := total(10, 20)
    fmt.Println("10 + 20  = ", answer)
    fmt.Println("100 + 500 = ", total(100,500))
}

That is all for now. As you can see from quick examples if you know C or a similar language picking up Go is easy.

Wrapping up

Go lang is a trendy choice for DevOps, large scale distributed systems, cloud workloads, and system programming work. We learned how to install Go on Ubuntu Linux. Both methods #1 and #3 install the latest version of Go. However, I prefer method # 1 as it is fast and easy to use. Check out this webpage and Go Programming Language book by Alan Donovan & Brian Kernighan , which has many hands-on introductions to Go for new developers and Linux sysadmins.