How To Install Go on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Go on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Go is a modern open-source programming language created by Google that allows you to build reliable and efficient applications. Go is a compiled language, which means you need to compile the source code to create an executable file that is used to run the software.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation Go programming language on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Go on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing Go on Ubuntu 20.04.

Now we download the latest stable version of Go, visit the official Go downloads page:

wget -c https://dl.google.com/go/go1.14.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz -O - | sudo tar -xz -C /usr/local

Then, adding the location of the Go directory to the $PATH environment variable, the system will know where to find the Go executable binaries. This can be done by appending the following line either to the /etc/profile file (for a system-wide installation) or the $HOME/.profile file:

~/.profile

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

Save the file, and load the new PATH environment variable into the current shell session:

source ~/.profile

Check for the installed version:

$ go version
go version go1.14.2 linux/amd64

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Go. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Go programming language in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa systems. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Go programming language website.