Installing Go & Setting Up the Workspace

Installing Go & Setting Up the Workspace

This lesson explains how to install Go on Windows, macOS, and Linux, then create a simple module and understand the basic workspace structure.

Install Go

Windows

1. Go to https://go.dev/dl/ and download the Windows MSI installer.
2. Run the installer and accept the default installation location.
3. Open PowerShell and verify the installation:

go version

4. Check that Go is on your PATH and that the install location is correct:

go env GOROOT
go env GOPATH
go env GO111MODULE

If go version does not work, open Windows Settings, search for Environment Variables, and add C:\Go\bin to the PATH. Then restart PowerShell.

macOS

1. Download the macOS package from https://go.dev/dl/ and run the installer.
2. Open Terminal and verify:

go version

3. If the command is not found, add Go to your shell PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin"

Then restart your terminal or source your shell profile.

Linux

1. Download the Linux tarball from https://go.dev/dl/.
2. Extract it to /usr/local:

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.22.linux-amd64.tar.gz

3. Add Go to your PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin"

4. Verify the installation:

go version

Modules and Workspace Basics

Go uses modules to manage dependencies and versions. A module is a collection of packages with a go.mod file at its root. Modules allow your code to live anywhere on disk, not just inside GOPATH.

Create a new project directory and initialize a module:

mkdir hello-go
cd hello-go
go mod init github.com/yourname/hello-go

Create main.go:

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    fmt.Println("Hello from your first Go module!")
}

Run the project:

go run main.go

Build a reusable binary:

go build

This produces an executable named hello-go on macOS/Linux or hello-go.exe on Windows. Use go env to inspect your Go configuration and verify your module is active.