# Installing Go And Your Workspace

- Published: May 12, 2016
- Author: William Kennedy
- URL: https://www.ardanlabs.com/blog/2016/05/installing-go-and-your-workspace.html

### Introduction

If you are new to Linux or the Mac you might find installing Go to be a bit confusing. It was for me when I started learning Go. Go was the reason I stopped using Windows, which I used for 20 years. Even if you're experienced with these operation systems, setting up Go might seem a bit of a mystery. With this in mind, let's walk through installing Go.

### Downloading Go

Start by navigating to the Go download page: [https://golang.org/dl/](https://golang.org/dl/)

![](../../../images/goinggo/70_figure1.png)

Select the binary distribution for your operating system and run the installation program. After you run the installation program, Go will be installed at the following locations:

**Mac:** `/usr/local/go`  
**Windows:** `c:\go`  
**Linux:** `$HOME/go`

_Note: If you download the `tar.gz` file for Linux, unzip the file in your `$HOME` directory under a folder named `go`. This is the expected and default location. Make sure the `$HOME/go/bin` folder is in your path._

Once Go is installed you should be able to run the `go` command from a terminal. Start by running the `go env` command:

```
$ go env

GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GOOS="darwin"
GOPATH=""
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/darwin_amd64"
GCCGO="gccgo"
CC="clang"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/var/folders/_v/4r515ktx08g5yr6dgkxhfyfr0000gn/T/go-build802577064=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
```

What you should notice is that the `$GOPATH` variable is empty. We need to fix this, but to fix it we need to understand what a Go workspace is.

### Go Workspace
A Go workspace is a physical location on disk where you will load and work with Go code. I recommend that you maintain a single workspace on your machine. It will be simpler and most editor plugins are easier to configure as well.

_Note: There are ways with most editors to create different configurations that could be used to point to different workspaces. So it is not impossible to have multiple workspaces, but I find it is better to maintain a single workspace._

Your Go workspace can't be the same location that Go was installed in. So for Window and Linux users, please stay away from the `c:\go` and `$HOME/go` folders respectively. For Mac users, you would really need to go out of your way to use `/usr/local/go` but stay away from this location as well.

We need to create a new set of folders to represent the Go workspace. There is a special folder that must exist inside your Go workspace named `src` and is very important. All the code you load and work on must exist inside this `src` folder.

The `src` folder represents the start of your Go workspace. Your `GOPATH` is an environment variable that points to your Go workspace and represents the physical location on disk where the `src` folder is located, but does not include the `src` folder.

#### Mac and Linux Users

Create folders named `code/go/src` in your `$HOME` folder:

```
cd $HOME
mkdir -p ~/code/go/src
```

Update the `.bash_profile` file or your shell profile if there is another one you use:

```
cd $HOME
nano .bash_profile
```

At the top of the `.bash_profile` add these environmental variables:
```
export GOPATH="$HOME/code/go"
export PATH="$PATH:$GOPATH/bin"
```

Save the file and then source it:
```
source .bash_profile
```

#### Window Users

Create folders named `code\go\src` in your `$HOME` folder:

```
cd c:\Users\<username>
md code

cd code
md go

cd go
md src
```

Go to your system settings and add the `GOPATH` variable and update your `PATH`.

```
GOPATH="c:\Users\<username>\code\go"
PATH="...;%GOPATH%\bin"
```

![](../../../images/goinggo/70_figure2.jpeg)

Then close all terminal windows and open a new one.

### Validating Go Workspace

Validate that to Go workspace is configured correctly by running the `go env` command again:

```
$ go env

GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GOOS="darwin"
GOPATH="/Users/<username>/code/go"
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/darwin_amd64"
GCCGO="gccgo"
CC="clang"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/var/folders/_v/4r515ktx08g5yr6dgkxhfyfr0000gn/T/go-build802577064=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-g -O2"
```

If everything is good, the `GOPATH` variable will no longer be empty. If the `GOPATH` variable is still empty, try one more time to create a new terminal window. If still no luck, reach out to me over email: `bill@ardanlabs.com`

At this point Go is installed and you are ready to write some code. To test this do two things. First, `go get` the Go linter named `golint`:

_Note: You must have the `git` client installed and installed to work on the command line. If not then `go get` will not work. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git_

```
go get -u github.com/golang/lint/golint
```

If everything works you should see no response. What `go get` does is clone the `golint` repo and places the source code inside the Go workspace. It also builds the code and installs the `golint` binary inside the newly created `bin` folder inside the Go workspace.

```
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/golang/lint
ls -la

total 144
drwxr-xr-x  13 bill  staff    442 May 12 21:52 .
drwxr-xr-x   4 bill  staff    136 Nov 16 18:16 ..
drwxr-xr-x  15 bill  staff    510 May 12 21:59 .git
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff     96 May 12 21:52 .travis.yml
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff    410 Aug  7  2015 CONTRIBUTING.md
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff   1479 Aug  7  2015 LICENSE
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff   3098 May 12 21:52 README.md
drwxr-xr-x   4 bill  staff    136 May 12 21:52 golint
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff  43808 May 12 21:52 lint.go
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff    487 May 12 21:52 lint16.go
-rw-r--r--   1 bill  staff   7607 May 12 21:52 lint_test.go
drwxr-xr-x   4 bill  staff    136 Aug  7  2015 misc
drwxr-xr-x  32 bill  staff   1088 May 12 21:52 testdata
```

Notice that URL path of `golint` used in the `go get` call is represented on disk. The source code was loaded inside the Go workspace, based on the configured `GOPATH`, inside the `src` folder.

To validate the `bin` folder was configured properly with your system `PATH`, try to run the `golint` command:

```
$ golint --help
Usage of golint:
	golint [flags] # runs on package in current directory
	golint [flags] package
	golint [flags] directory
	golint [flags] files... # must be a single package
Flags:
  -min_confidence float
    	minimum confidence of a problem to print it (default 0.8)
  -set_exit_status
    	set exit status to 1 if any issues are found
```

If everything is good you should see that help output.

### Editors

There are a lot of options and plugins for many of the popular editors.

**VIM**  
http://www.vim.org/download.php

Victor Farazdagi wrote this post on installing Vim for Go:  
[http://farazdagi.com../../2015/vim-as-golang-ide/](/broken-link)


**Visual Studio Code**  
https://code.visualstudio.com

Luke Hobah wrote an amazing plugin for VS Code:  
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-go

**Atom**  
https://atom.io

Joe Fitzgerald wrote this plugin for Atom  
https://github.com/joefitzgerald/go-plus

**LiteIDE**  
http://sourceforge.net/projects/liteide/files

**Emacs**  
This is the configuration Guillaume Charmes uses:  
https://github.com/creack/dotfiles

### Conclusion

I hope this installation guide get you up and running quickly. Now that you can start writing code in Go, check out some of these other resources.

**Ardan Labs Go Training**  
[https://github.com/ardanlabs/gotraining ](https://github.com/ardanlabs/gotraining )

[https://github.com/ardanlabs/gotraining/tree/master/courses](/broken-link)

**Offical Go Resources**  
http://golang.org/  
https://github.com/golang/go/wiki  
http://blog.golang.org/  

**Dave Cheney**  
http://dave.cheney.net

**Video**  
http://gophervids.appspot.com/  
http://www.youtube.com/user/gocoding  

**Go In Action**  
If you would like to try out the book, send me an email: `bill@ardanlabs.com`  
https://www.manning.com/books/go-in-action  

**Slack and Forum Community**  
https://invite.slack.golangbridge.org  
https://forum.golangbridge.org