[2 min installs] Go on Ubuntu

Here is how to install go (golang) on Ubuntu 20.04 in under two minutes:

Step 1 - Download Go from the official website

The first step is to download Go from the official website.

Step 2 - Remove any previous Go installation

Remove any previous Go installation by deleting the /usr/local/go folder (if it exists), then extract the archive you just downloaded into /usr/local, creating a fresh Go tree in /usr/local/go:

rm -rf /usr/local/go && tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.19.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Do not untar the archive into an existing /usr/local/go tree. This is known to produce broken Go installations.

Step 3 - Add /usr/local/go/bin to the PATH environment variable

You can do this by adding the following line to your $HOME/.profile or /etc/profile (for a system-wide installation):

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

Note: Changes made to a profile file may not apply until the next time you log into your computer. To apply the changes immediately, just run the shell commands directly or execute them from the profile using a command such as source $HOME/.profile

That’s it

You have successfully installed Go on your Ubuntu system. You can verify that you've installed Go correctly by opening a command prompt and typing the following command:

go version

This will print the Go language version.

Article by

Jenda Tovarys

Jenda leads Growth at Better Stack. For the past 5 years, Jenda has been writing about exciting learnings from working with hundreds of developers across the world. When he's not spreading the word about the amazing software built at Better Stack, he enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, and playing tennis.

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