gvm is a short name of Go Version Manager. It allows you to manage your go versions and change versions
according to your requirements. It is completely written in Go and provides cross-platform usability
gvm supports Windows, Linux, Freebsd and MacOS. It requires to preinstalled go for windows and GOROOT to be
set in environmental variables for windows. In addition to that, the user privileges must be set to run the program for all OSs. Otherwise, there will
be permission issues while removing and replacing the folders/files. Check Troubleshooting section.
Linux:
#Example for amd64 arch
# Linux Example (assumes ~/bin is in PATH).
curl -o gvm.tar.gz -OL https://github.com/olimpias/gvm/releases/download/v0.1.1/gvm.linux.amd64.tar.gz
tar -C ~/bin -xzf gvm.tar.gz
chmod +x ~/bin/gvm
gvm use 1.14.4Supported Archs For Linux : 386, amd64, arm, arm64, mips, mipsle, mips64, mips64le, ppc64, ppc64le, s390x
MacOS:
# Example for amd64 arch
curl -o gvm.tar.gz -OL https://github.com/olimpias/gvm/releases/download/v0.1.1/gvm.darwin.amd64.tar.gz
tar -C /usr/local/bin -xzf gvm.tar.gz
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gvm
gvm use 1.14.4Supported Archs For MacOs : amd64
Windows:
# Example for amd64 arch
# Expected to use bash terminal
curl -o gvm.zip -OL https://github.com/olimpias/gvm/releases/download/v0.1.1/gvm.windows.amd64.exe.zip
unzip gvm.zip
gvm use 1.14.4Supported Archs For MacOs : 386, amd64
FreeBSD:
#Example for amd64 arch
# Freebsd Example (assumes ~/bin is in PATH).
curl -o gvm.tar.gz -OL https://github.com/olimpias/gvm/releases/download/v0.1.1/gvm.freebsd.amd64.tar.gz
tar -C ~/bin -xzf gvm.tar.gz
chmod +x ~/bin/gvm
gvm use 1.14.4Supported Archs For Freebsd : 386, amd64, arm, arm64
To support use other architecture, you just need to change amd64 in the link for curl command.
Note: If you are trying to install go for the first time, it will not work for Windows OS. It requires preinstalled go for windows.
Download release version from releases according to your operating system and architecture.
Extract the executable from tar/zip. Then enjoy it!
gvm provides 5 type of commands that you can apply; help, list, use, download and del
Lists the possible go versions that you have downloaded to your local machine. To download a specific version checkout Download Command
Command usage: gvm list
Example usage:
gvm list
go1.10.1
go1.13.1
go1.13.8
go1.14.2
go1.14.3
Downloads the version that you inputted the command. It downloads tar file into your $HOME/.gvm path.
gvm dl <go-version>
Example Usage:
gvm dl 1.11.1
118.43 MiB / 118.43 MiB [-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------] 100.00% 23.81 MiB p/s 5s
Sets go version that you inputted into the command. It unzip the downloaded file and moves files into your GOROOT path. It may take sometime. In future versions, progressbar is going to be added.
If you have not downloaded the version before, use command will trigger download of it as well. Then it will set the go version.
Command Usage: gvm use <go-version>
Example Usage:
gvm use 1.11.1
Deletes the version of go file that you inputted as a version from your $HOME/.gvm.
Command usage:gvm del <go-version>
To print help
Command usage: gvm help
gvm is a go version controller
Commands:
list list the possible downloaded versions that ready to use.
dl downloads the version that you specify to your machine.
use uses the version that specify as an input. It has to be downloaded first using dl command.
del deletes the version that you specify as an input
When Go is installed by default installer, the created folder could have access restrictions. If it is the case please use following command to bypass it.
Mostly Go is installed to /usr/local/go path by default installer. We need to grant access for /usr/local/go file path.
sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/local/go