Go setup on ubuntu

Question

I am trying to setup a go dev environment on Ubuntu, and having no luck. Following directions here https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install golang

Then I

mkdir $HOME/golang
export GOPATH=$HOME/golang

No dice. Even doing something simple like go version throws the following error:

go: cannot find GOROOT directory: /usr/local/opt/go/libexec

Everywhere I look online says simply not to set GOROOT. Please help, I don't understand where to go from here. This is a fresh install on a fresh VM.

---

GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOCHAR="6"
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="linux"
GOOS="linux"
GOPATH="/home/isaac/golang"
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/usr/local/opt/go/libexec"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/opt/go/libexec/pkg/tool/linux_amd64"
TERM="dumb"
CC="gcc"
GOGCCFLAGS="-g -O2 -fPIC -m64 -pthread"
CXX="g++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"

Answer 1

On my ubuntu machine i installed go by following those simple steps:

$ wget https://storage.googleapis.com/golang/go1.4.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.4.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ rm go1.4.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

Add go to your $PATH variable

$ mkdir $HOME/go
$ nano ~/.bashrc
export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin:$GOPATH/bin
$ source ~/.bashrc

This Works just fine.

Answer 2

So I eventually figured this out, and boy was it dumb on my part. I had a script that was effecting $GOROOT, and learned alot. Here are the big lessons:

• Do NOT use sudo apt-get install golang it is out of date and doing so means you now have to revert the install. sudo apt-get install golang-go is also out of date. Just don't use apt-get.
• sudo apt-get purge golang does not reset environment variables or delete all go related folders.

• unset GOPATH GOHOME GOROOT is important cleanup before trying another install

• ONLY install via tar.gz from the golang website

• GOROOT means the folder where go's internal files live, so basically where ever the contents of the tar.gz lives on your system. Typically /usr/local/go
• GOHOME does not need to be set. If you set it, use unset
• GOPATH is the location of your workspace, you need to mkdir to create that folder as well as set the GOPATH environment variable.
• Your path needs to included $GOROOT/bin:$GOPATH/bin for the setup to function.

Usage of custom scripts that effect .zshrc or bashrc or profile should not contain setting of $GOROOT!!