Golang/Install

Ubuntu Install

Ubuntu LTS 16.04

Download from https://golang.org/dl/ and extract it into <coede>/usr/local, creating a Go tree in /usr/local/go

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzvf go$VERSION.$OS-$ARCH.tar.gz

Add /usr/local/go/bin to the PATH environment variable. You can do this by adding this line to your /etc/profile (for a system-wide installation) or $HOME/.profile:

sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/go" "go" "/usr/local/go/bin/go" 2 #adds to the $PATH
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin #optional

Multiple versions

You can have multiple versions fo Golang installed in your system. The way to manage the current version in use is to use update-alternatives

Display best options

sudo update-alternatives --display go
go - auto mode
  link best version is /usr/local/go/bin/go
  link currently points to /usr/local/go/bin/go
  link go is /usr/bin/go
/usr/local/go/bin/go - priority 2

Before

Selection    Path                  Priority   Status
 ------------------------------------------------------------
   0            /usr/bin/golang-go     10        auto mode
   1            /usr/bin/gccgo-go      5         manual mode
   2            /usr/bin/golang-go     10        manual mode

Action: Installed manually unzipped GoLang into /usr/local/go but was not added to alternatives. Use command below to add it on:

sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/go" "go" "/usr/local/go/bin/go" 2

After

Selection    Path                  Priority   Status
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 * 0            /usr/bin/golang-go     10        auto mode
   1            /usr/bin/gccgo-go      5         manual mode
   2            /usr/bin/golang-go     10        manual mode
   3            /usr/local/go/bin/go   2         manual mode

Then run command to change go binary available in your shell

sudo update-alternatives --config go  #then select ''3''

When you run

$ go version #the version of ''go'' will be the one from <tt>/usr/local/go</tt> location.