Installing Go on your computer

The Go download and install instructions (https://golang.org/doc/install#install) require you to download a file from https://go.dev/ and follow a couple of instructions. We include here the steps for Go version 17.7, which is the latest version available at the time of writing. Newer versions of Go 1 should continue to work.

Windows

To install Go on Windows, follow these steps:

1. Download https://golang.org/dl/go1.17.7.windows-amd64.msi.
2. Execute the go1.17.7.windows-amd64.msi file and follow the instructions.
3. Open the Command Prompt window (cmd) and run go version to verify the installation.

Mac

If you have Homebrew installed, you can run brew install go. Otherwise, you can follow these steps:

1. Download https://golang.org/dl/go1.17.7.darwin-amd64.pkg.
2. Execute the go1.17.7.darwin-amd64.pkg file and follow the instructions.
3. Open a Terminal and run go version to verify the installation.

Linux

Go is typically available as a system package in a Linux distribution, but is often an older version. Follow these steps to install a more recent release:

1. Download https://golang.org/dl/go1.17.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz.
2. Remove any existing Go installation with rm -rf /usr/local/go.
3. Extract the archive you downloaded into /usr/local with tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.17.7.linux-amd64.tar.gz.
4. Add /usr/local/go/bin to the PATH environment variable with export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin. To make this persistent, add this line as well in $HOME/.bash_profile. This last part is valid for bash, but you might want to do something similar if you use a different shell.
5. Run go version to verify the installation

There you go! You can now download and install Go in your system without any hassle. To install a different version, just replace 17.7 in the instructions with a target version of your choice.