Setting up Golang on Linux the right way

This guide covers doing a system-wide Go install on a Linux machine and, more importantly, configuring it so you can install Go modules to be run as part of the user’s PATH.

Do the install

First, we’re going to more-or-less follow the instructions at https://go.dev/doc/install, but we’re going to replace /usr/local with /opt (more about this at the end) and include sudo. Follow the Download link there to get the latest version of Go for Linux.

Once downloaded, cd to the location of that file and enter the following, being sure to remove any other old go tarballs in the directory first:

sudo rm -rf /opt/go && sudo tar -C /opt -xzf go1.*.linux-amd64.tar.gz

On a fresh install, the rm command is not needed, but it’s handy when upgrading to a new Go version. If you’ve previously installed to /usr/local, you can clean that up now.

Now add the following to your /etc/profile for a system-wide install:

# system-wide Go install
export PATH="$PATH:/opt/go/bin"

You’ll need to use sudo to modify this file.

Add Go modules to your user’s PATH

In ~/.profile, add the following:

# set PATH so it includes GOPATH/bin if it exists
if [ -x "$(command -v go)" ] && [ -d "$(go env GOPATH)/bin" ]; then
    PATH="$(go env GOPATH)/bin:$PATH"
fi

This lets us easily use modules installed via go install. Note that installed modules will only be accessible for the current user.

You can experiment in the current terminal by reloading your profile files with . /etc/profile and . ~/.profile, or just restart.

At this point, you can do go version and you’ll be presented with something like go version go1.24.1 linux/amd64.

In practice: installing Govulncheck

govulncheck is a tool that will scan your code for potential vulnerabilities using a vulnerability database. Let’s go ahead and install that:

go install golang.org/x/vuln/cmd/govulncheck@latest

Now you can check your code from your module’s root directory:

govulncheck ./...

or from some other directory:

govulncheck -C ../to/my/module/.. ./...

Updating Go

Installing a new version of Go is super simple:

1. Download the latest version from https://go.dev
2. In a terminal, cd to the folder with the file you downloaded, and delete any previously downloaded go1*.tar.gz files
3. Do sudo rm -rf /opt/go && sudo tar -C /opt -xzf go1.*.linux-amd64.tar.gz
4. Profit 💰 💰 💰

Why /opt and not /usr/local?

Files in /usr/local are expected to be split into bin and lib folders, with only /usr/local/bin being added to the PATH. In contrast, /opt is specifically for software like Go that is packaged in a single folder, with its bin folder being manually added to the PATH if so desired.

A more detailed explanation can be found over at Baeldung.

And that about does it! Please send any gotchas or tips you have here.