Raspberry Pi Install Guide for Raspbian
Start Here…
Installing Go on a Raspberry Pi is a little more complicated that installing most other software on your Raspberry Pi. But it is still not hard to install. This is because Go is a fast moving project. A new version is released every 6 months. The version of Go that is available with Raspbian is now over two years old. Since then while the Go language has remained the same the Go tools have improved significantly. So we are going to show you how to install the latest version of Go.
We need to install Go using the LXTerminal application, or just the “Terminal” for short. So your first task is to log into you Raspberry Pi and start a new Terminal.
Notes
You need to type the commands in the boxes like this:
lsFirst Upgrade Your Web Browser
If you are not using the latest version of Raspbian you might need to upgrade your web browser. The Raspbery Pi foundation announced a new web browser in September 2014.
Important
If you are still using Midori, the original web browser that came with the Raspberry Pi you need to upgrade.
To so this you need to open a terminal and type
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install epiphany-browserIf you already have the Epiphany browser installed the last command will do nothing.
Notes
If you are not running the updated user interface desktop announced in December 2014 you will also want to install that. If your menu bar is at the bottom of the screen then you need to upgrade. If it is at the top you are already using the new user interface.
To upgrade you need to open a terminal window and type
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install raspberrypi-ui-modsOnce the install is complete you need to reboot your Raspberry Pi for the changes to take effect. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SAVED ANY OPEN DOCUMENTS BEFORE YOU DO THIS
sudo rebootOnce your raspberry pi starts again you will see the new user interface.
Once installed you can start you new web browser via the Menu at the top of
the scren. The new web browser is called Web Browser and is in the
Internet menu.
You can also start it by typing
epiphanyDownload and Install the Programs that Go needs
Go needs four other programs to work correctly. These programs must be installed on your Raspberry Pi first. These programs are called dependancies because another program, in this case Go, depends upon them to work correctly.
The four programs are “Git”, “Mercurial”, “Bazaar” and “Subversion”. They are all version control tools.
To download and install these on your Raspberry Pi type the following command into your terminal.
sudo apt-get install git mercurial bzr subversionDownload Go
Next you need to download Go itself. The catch is you can’t get it form the Go’s download page. The CPU in your Raspberry Pi is based on an ARM CPU. Currently the Go project only support Intel or AMD CPU’s as their tier one platform. ARM CPU’s are a tier two platform and so are not built be default. But you are not stuck.
Enter Dave Cheney. Dave is one of the people who works on Go and he works the ARM version. You can find these on his unoffical ARM tarballs for Go page.
OK now you need to download the correct file from Dave’s page. You should download the latest version that Dave has available. Currently this is Go version 1.4.2. if there is a later version there when you read this you should download that instead.
Note
Note
Once you have downloaded the file then it is time to install Go.
Notes
xarchiver. If this happens, just quit the archive
manager. We want to install Go on its default location, but we can’t do that
with the archive manager.
Installing Go
Now you have Go this is really easy. First you need to change directory into your Downloads directory where your web browser download Go to.
cd ~/Downloadslssudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.4.2.linux-arm-multiarch-armv-1.tar.gzgo1.4.2.linux-arm-multiarch-armv-1.tar.gz is the filename of the
file you downloaded. If your filename is different you need to make sure you use
the filename of the file you downloaded and not go1.4.2.linux-arm-multiarch-armv-1.tar.gz
Now you need to tell your Terminal where to find Go. To do this you need to edit
a file called .bashrc in your home directory. You can do this form the Terminal
by typing
leafpad ~/.bashrcBe Careful
.bashrc file is an important file. It controls how your Terminal works.
We are going to add two lines to the bottom of the file. Be careful not to
change any of the other lines in the file. If you think you have made a mistake
quit leafpad without saving the file. You can then start leafpad again with the
original .bashrc by retyping the above command.
.bashrc file you need to add these two lines.
# Tell the terminal where to find Go
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/binNext you need to tell your terminal to read your updated .bashrc file. You do
this with the source command.
source ~/.bashrcgo command
go versiongo version go1.4.2 linux/arm
Notes
Now you need to set up your workspace.
Setting up a Go Workspace
Go code must be kept inside a workspace. A workspace is a directory on your computer. A directory is the correct name for the folders that you see when you use the file manager. Inside the workspace directory there must be three more directories.
srccontains the Go source code, organised into packages. There is one directory per package. More on packages later.pkgcontains the package objectsbincontains your executable programs.
The go tool builds source packages it finds in the src directory and
installs the resulting binaries in the pkg and bin directories.
This is not a complicated as it sounds. Creating a work space is easy. You can call your Go workspace anything, but we will choose to call ours “go-workspace”. To create your workspace you need to type the following into you Terminal
cd ~
mkdir go-workspace
cd go-workspace
mkdir src
mkdir pkg
mkdir binls -ldrwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Feb 11 23:33 bin
drwxr-xr-x 3 pi pi 4096 Aug 14 2014 pkg
drwxr-xr-x 11 pi pi 4096 Jan 21 16:13 src
We are nearly finished now. There is just one more step to…umm…go. We need to tell
Go where to find your workspace. To do this we need to edit your .bashrc file
again. So in you terminal type
leafpad ~/.bashrcGOAPTH environmental variable. As before go the the
end of the .bashrc file and add these five lines. These five lines should
appear below the lines we added earlier.
# Set the value of the GOPATH environmental variable to the go-workspace
# This tells go which directory is your workspace
export GOPATH=$HOME/go-workspace
# Add the workspace's bin directory to the PATH
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/binThe last step is to tell your terminal to read your updated .bashrc file. Once
again we do this with the source command.
source ~/.bashrcYou now have Go installed on your Raspberry Pi. Now you need to test it to make sure that everything is working. To find out how to do this you need to read testing your install guide.
