go install always attempts to use GOROOT and GOPATH is not listed under go env

Question

I'm having a quite frustrating problem with the GOPATH, which, despite being set in .profile, is not appearing when invoking go env, and does not appear to be affecting the go install target location.

I'm attempting to use go install to install packages, and am getting this error, which clearly shows that it is attempting to install in /usr/lib/go, rather than the intended directory of /home/me/dev/go.

$ go install github.com/songgao/colorgo
go install github.com/songgao/go.pipeline: mkdir /usr/lib/go/pkg/linux_386/github.com: permission denied

go env gives the following results.

$ go env
GOROOT="/usr/lib/go"
GOBIN=""
GOARCH="386"
GOCHAR="8"
GOOS="linux"
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="386"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/lib/go/pkg/tool/linux_386"
GOGCCFLAGS="-g -O2 -fPIC -m32 -pthread"
CGO_ENABLED="1"

But it most certainly is set.

$ echo $GOPATH
/home/me/dev/go

Update: I have exported GOPATH in ~/.profile and sourced it, but I'm still having the same problem.

$ export GOPATH=/home/me/dev/go
$ go env
GOROOT="/usr/lib/go"
GOBIN=""
GOARCH="386"
GOCHAR="8"
GOOS="linux"
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="386"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/lib/go/pkg/tool/linux_386"
GOGCCFLAGS="-g -O2 -fPIC -m32 -pthread"
CGO_ENABLED="1"

Update again: This problem has ceased since I upgraded to go1.1beta2. I'm not sure what was wrong, because GOPATH appeared to be set correctly, but it's all apparently working now.

Answer 1

GOPATH and workspaces

$ mkdir -p $HOME/dev/go/src
$ mkdir -p $HOME/dev/go/bin

In $HOME/.profile:

export GOPATH=$HOME/dev/go:
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/dev/go/bin

Then reboot or log out and log in.

As soon as you have logged in, before anything else, run:

$ env | grep -i '^GO'
GOPATH=/home/me/dev/go
$ cat $HOME/.profile

What output do you get?

Answer 2

Create a soft link, then copy the go binary in /usr/local as follow:

# ln -sf /usr/local/go/bin/go /usr/bin/go