getgo

README

getgo checks https://golang.org/dl/?mode=json to determine the latest stable version of Go to download and verifies its checksum. The tool won't download the binary if a verified one already exists locally.

It is command line utility with an experimental GUI mode that is only half-baked.

Install

Pre-built Binaries

Pre-built binaries are available in the releases section or it can be built if you already have Go installed:

go get lazyhacker.dev/getgo

Compile From Source

If you've downloaded the source then the standard Go tool for building can be used:

go build main.go

Usage

Just run getgo to download the most recent stable archive for the platform it is running from. To also extract the archive run it with the '-x' flag:

getgo -x <dir to extract to>

On Windows, getgo can be told to download the installer with

getgo -kind installer

To download to a specific directory:

getgo -dir ~/Downloads

To download another OS and/or arch version, use the '-os' and the '-arch' flags:

getgo -os windows -arch amd64

To get help info:

getgo -help

Full Example

I use getgo make it easier for me to upgrade Go when a new release comes out. The steps are generally:

1. Download Go from golang.org.
2. Verify the download.
3. Delete /usr/local/go.
4. Untar the downloaded .tar.gz file to /usr/local

With getgo, this will do the above:

sudo rm /usr/local/go
sudo getgo -x /usr/local

Experimental GUI version

I'm experimenting and comparing different front-end frameworks starting with Fyne and GTK3. To avoid requiring users from having to install the different frameworks that they might not to have on their system to compile a version, I'm using build tags to control what gets compiled.

To try the Fyne version (require installing Fyne and its dependencies):

go get lazyhacker.dev/getgo
go run -tags gui,fyne lazyhacker.dev/getgo

** There is a problem with gotk3 and Go 1.16 **

To try the GTK3 version (requires installing the GTK3 development libraries):

go get lazyhacker.dev/getgo
go run -tags gui,gtk3 lazyhacker.dev/getgo

Documentation

Overview

getgo is a command line tool to download the latest stable version of Go (http://golang.org) that matches the OS and architecture that it is executed from. It will check the sha256 checksum to make sure the downloaded file is verified or delete it if it doesn't.