Installing Go

Step-by-step guide to installing Go on various operating systems

Introduction

Go (or Golang) is a modern programming language developed at Google. Before you can start working with Go, you need to install the compiler and set up your environment. In this lesson, we’ll cover installing Go on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Checking the Current Version

If Go is already installed on your system, you can check the version with:

go version

The output will look something like:

go version go1.23.4 linux/amd64

Installing on Windows

Option 1: Official Installer

1. Head to the official site go.dev/dl
2. Download the MSI installer for Windows (e.g., go1.23.4.windows-amd64.msi)
3. Run the installer and follow the prompts
4. By default, Go installs to C:\Go

Option 2: Via winget

winget install GoLang.Go

Option 3: Via Chocolatey

choco install golang

After installation, open a new terminal and verify:

go version

Installing on macOS

Option 1: Official Installer

1. Download the PKG file from go.dev/dl
2. Open the downloaded file and follow the prompts
3. Go will be installed to /usr/local/go

Option 2: Via Homebrew (recommended)

brew install go

Verify the installation:

go version

Installing on Linux

Ubuntu/Debian

# Remove old version (if present)
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go

# Download and extract
wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.23.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.23.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

# Add to PATH (in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc)
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Fedora/RHEL

sudo dnf install golang

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S go

Setting Up Environment Variables

After installation, Go automatically configures the main variables. You can check them with:

go env

Key variables:

Variable	Description	Example Value
GOROOT	Path to Go installation	/usr/local/go
GOPATH	Working directory	~/go
GOBIN	Path for binaries	~/go/bin

First Programme

Let’s create a simple programme to verify the installation:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "runtime"
)

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Go installed successfully!")
    fmt.Printf("Version: %s\n", runtime.Version())
}

Save the code to a file called hello.go and run it:

go run hello.go

Output (version depends on what’s installed):

Go installed successfully!
Version: go1.23.4

Updating Go

Windows and macOS

Simply download and run the new installer — it will replace the previous version.

Linux

# Remove old version
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go

# Install the new one (replace with the current version)
wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.23.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.23.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Managing Versions with gvm

To work with multiple Go versions, you can use Go Version Manager:

# Install gvm
bash < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)

# Usage
gvm install go1.23.4
gvm use go1.23.4 --default

Exercises

Exercise 1

Install Go on your system and run go version. What version is installed?

Exercise 2

Run go env and find the values of GOROOT and GOPATH.

Exercise 3

Create a file called check.go with the following contents and run it:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "runtime"
)

func main() {
    fmt.Printf("OS: %s\n", runtime.GOOS)
    fmt.Printf("Arch: %s\n", runtime.GOARCH)
    fmt.Printf("Go version: %s\n", runtime.Version())
    fmt.Printf("Num CPU: %d\n", runtime.NumCPU())
}

Summary

• Go can be installed via the official installer, a package manager, or manually
• After installation, go version shows the current version
• go env displays all Go environment variables
• For working with multiple versions, use gvm
• Updating Go is done by simply reinstalling

In the next lesson, we’ll write our first programme.

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Sources

• Go Downloads
• Getting Started
• Managing Go installations

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