Ubuntu 16 LTS comes with too old GO language version, the version in the official repository is

golang-1.6.

Many programs released past couple of years depend on go lang 1.7+, so 1.6 in Ubuntu 16 LTS is really obsolete. At present the latest version is 1.9, so we’ll show you simple steps to install the go lang on your ubuntu 16 lts server

STEP 1) Get root if you want to install it globally to be used from any user!

sudo su
cd

STEP 2) Download the GO language binaries from the official site

https://golang.org/dl/

And copy the URL link of the program from the Linux section, now it has the following text:

Linux 2.6.23 or later, Intel 64-bit processor
go1.10.linux-amd64.tar.gz (114MB)

And download it with wget:

wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.9.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

STEP 4) Uncompress the file with “tar”

tar xzvf go1.9.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

STEP 5) Move the files in “/usr/local/go”

you could put the installation anywhere, but most manual installed programs go to “/usr/local”

mv go /usr/local/

STEP 6) Set properly the environment to use your GO 1.9 installation

• • Create file with path and name
    

    /etc/profile.d/golang.sh

  • Make the file executable with

    chmod 755 /etc/profile.d/golang.sh
    

  • Insert the following line, which will add to the environment PATH your GO executable binaries

[[ -d "/usr/local/go" ]] && export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin"

STEP 7) Reload the environment or just log off/in and check if you could execute the GO tool

root@srv.local:~# source /etc/profile
root@srv.local:~# go version
go version go1.9.4 linux/amd64

* Here are all the commands in one place to install the specific version of GO 1.9.4 AMD64, you can use them in a script:

cd
mkdir go-installation
cd ./go-installation
sudo wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.9.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo tar xzvf go1.9.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv go /usr/local/
cat <<END | sudo tee /etc/profile.d/golang.sh 1>/dev/null
[[ -d "/usr/local/go" ]] && export PATH="\$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin"
END
sudo chmod 755 /etc/profile.d/golang.sh
source /etc/profile

And do not forget to

source /etc/profile

in your current shell session. It is mandatory for your current shell if you execute the above command from a script!

* This installation of GO Language 1.9 is from the official source the home site of GO Language. There are other easier ways to do it using, for example there are PPA repositories with Ubuntu packages ready to install, but they are not supported by the official GO team! Use them at your own risk as with all other PPA repositories.