Installing any version of go compiler on ubuntu

README.md

Prepare working environment for go compiler

Create "go path" directory (will store downloads and the source code that you yourself write)

mkdir ~/go

add following to your .bashrc or somewhere

if [ -d $HOME/go ]; then
   export GOPATH=${HOME}/go
   export PATH=${PATH}:${GOPATH}/bin
fi

Bootstrapping any version of go compiler on ubuntu

Begin by installing ubuntu version of golang

sudo apt install golang

Then donwload, compile and install "godeb". Godeb transforms upstream tarballs for the Go language in deb packages and installs them.

go get gopkg.in/niemeyer/godeb.v1/cmd/godeb

To use godeb run

godeb list            # list all available versions
godeb install         # build latest
godeb install 1.8.3   # build specific version

Run following to build latest golang compiler. This will take a while...

godeb install

After build finishes the package that godeb built will be in current dir

ls go_*.deb

Uninstall the ubuntu version of golang before installing the new version (they would conflict)

sudo apt remove golang
sudo apt auto-remove

Then install

sudo dpkg -i go_*.deb