Quick Guide: Set Up Golang on Your Ubuntu and Debian System

Go or Golang is an open-source, high-level programming language created at Google by Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson. Recently, it has become very popular for building scalable applications due to its simplicity, efficiency, and scalability. In this article, let's explore how to install the Golang package on Ubuntu/Debian systems.

We can install Golang in two ways: first, by manually installing the latest official package from the Go website, and second, through Debian’s apt package manager. I recommend manually installing the latest package because the apt package may not always provide the newest version.

Manual Installation:

To manually install the latest version (or any other version) of Go, follow these steps:

Remove any existing Go installation:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go

Download the latest binary package:

Next, download the latest Go package using the following command. I'm downloading the latest version available as of now (go 1.23.2) for x86-64. You can download a different version by specifying the version you need according to your device specs from the official Go download page. Just replace the version name along in the command.

wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.23.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
# wget https://go.dev/dl/<version>

Extract the archive:

Next, we need to extract the downloaded Go binary to the usr/local/ folder. We can do this with the following command:

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.23.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Add Go to the PATH:

Now we need to add Go to the PATH, so the system can recognize Go commands from any directory on our device. We can add it to the PATH with the following command:

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

Apply the changes:

Next, to apply all these changes, run the following command:

source ~/.profile

Verify Installation:

Now we can check if Go has been installed by verifying the version with the following command:

go version

This command should display the Go version we installed.

Install with the apt Package:

You can also install Go using the apt package, though this method may not always provide the latest version of Go. However, one advantage of this method is that you don't have to update manually, as it will be handled automatically through the apt repository.

Check available Go version:

First, check which version of Go is available with the apt package using the following command:

apt show golang

Currently, the apt golang package is at version 1.22, as shown in the image below. This version is not the latest, as mentioned earlier.

Install Go:

Next, install the Go package with the following command:

sudo apt install golang

Verify installation:

Run the following command to check the installed Go version:

go version

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Creating Your First Program in Go:

After successfully installing Go, let's create a "Hello, World!" program to ensure Go runs correctly.

Create a hello.go file with the following code:

package main
import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}

Next, in the terminal, run the file with:

go run hello.go

If Go is installed correctly, you'll see the output "Hello, World!"

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And voilà! You’ve successfully installed Go on your system.

I hope this guide helped you install Go on your Ubuntu/Debian device. If you have any questions or suggestions for improvement, feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for reading!