How to Install Golang on WSL/WSL2

#go #linux #ubuntu #beginners

One of the best feature that Windows 10 or 11 Pro support is WSL or WSL2, using this you can run any Linux OS like a windows application.

If you want to install GoLang on WSL/WSL2 and setup your development environment, please follow these steps

Check Latest Go Version

You can check latest Go Version for any OS like: Linux, macOS or Windows at https://go.dev/dl/

Install Go

At the time of writing this blog, the most recent LTS version of Go is 1.18.3.

wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz sudo tar -xvf go1.18.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz sudo mv go /usr/local

Edit .bashrc file

You have to edit .bashrc file before making further changes, you can follow below steps to open .bashrc file

cd ~ explorer.exe .

Open .bashrc file and add following lines at the bottom and save the file.
export GOROOT=/usr/local/go export GOPATH=$HOME/go export PATH=$GOPATH/bin:$GOROOT/bin:$PATH

Refresh your terminal using **bash **command

Check Go Version

go version

Make sure it returns the same version that you installed.

Top comments (18)

Jorgen Ordonez • Nov 23 '22

Thanks this helped. I had some minor differences in steps I took, which I will list below:

I use zsh so I edited .zshrc instead
Then after I reload the rc file using source ~/.zshrc instead of spawning a new shell.

Luiz Henrique F Salmonson • Oct 20 '23

Thank you. Update for current version and zsh user commands:
wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.21.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz sudo tar -xvf go1.21.3.linux-amd64.tar.gz sudo mv go /usr/local echo "export GOROOT=/usr/local/go" >> ~/.zshrc echo "export GOPATH=\$HOME/go" >> ~/.zshrc echo "export PATH=\$GOPATH/bin:\$GOROOT/bin:\$PATH" >> ~/.zshrc source ~/.zshrc

D.aȠ • May 6 '23

The same for me!

Olaleye Obidiya • Aug 14

Thanks, this works for bashrc also.

wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.23.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvf go1.23.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv go /usr/local
echo "export GOROOT=/usr/local/go" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export GOPATH=\$HOME/go" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PATH=\$GOPATH/bin:\$GOROOT/bin:\$PATH" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc