Installing Go with apt-get might not give you the most up to date golang version. On this page I describe how to install the latest golang version on how to set the $GOPATH and $GOROOT system variables
$go version
The program 'go' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
apt install golang-go
After installing golang with the suggested command apt install golang-go you might have an older version of golang installed.
$go version
go version go1.6.2 linux/amd64
So let’s install the latest version of go. This should work on all up to date Ubuntu versions, I tested it on 17.10, 16.04, 14.04.
To do so go to the download page of golang and select the version you want to install. In my case the latest version is 1.9.2, but your might be different. Rightclick and copy the link with linux-amd64.tar.gz in the name. Now we download this version using ``
$wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.9.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
Once the download is finished extract the package with sudo tar -xvf go1.9.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz. This should result in a lot of text flying by your screen. Once its finished there should be a folder named go in the directory. You can remove the package now with rm go1.9.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz.
$sudo tar -xvf go1.9.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ls
go go1.9.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$rm go1.9.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ls
go
Now move the folder anywhere you like with sudo mv go [folder]. In my case I used sudo mv go /usr/local
$sudo mv go /usr/local
$ls
[empty]
To access golang from anywhere on the system and to let golang know where to install packages we have to set the GOPATH and GOROOT system variables and additionally add them to PATH. To do so we have to append them to ~/.profile. Open ~/.profile with:
$sudo nano ~/.profile
Scroll all the way to the botton and add these three lines to the file and save it:
export GOROOT=/usr/local/go
export GOPATH=/go
export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$GOROOT/bin:$PATH
You have to change the folder in the first line if you moved the go folder to a different location. The second line tells go where to install packages with go get. So if you want a different folder there just change it in the second line. The third line adds both to the PATH.
After restarting the command line you have the most up to date go version installed:
go version
go version go1.9.2 linux/amd64