Building TinyGo from source on Ubuntu 22.04

[Gustavomurta]

I really like Golang and TinyGo, as they are easy to learn languages, easy to understand and use. For me, they are the most smart languages today. For an apprentice programmer like me, sometimes I have difficulties that slow down my development. The best way to learn is by teaching.

I intend to contribute to the development of TinyGo. And to carry out tests, it is necessary to compile TinyGo source.

On the TinyGo website there are already instructions on how to compile TinyGo. In order to help the TinyGo community, as a gesture of gratitude, I will develop a very detailed tutorial on how to compile TinyGo on the Ubuntu 22.04 platform.
I will post in steps according to my availability.

Build from source:
https://tinygo.org/docs/guides/build/

[Gustavomurta]

Installing Golang on Ubuntu 22.04:

"You must have Go already installed on your machine in order to install TinyGo. We recommend Go v1.19 or above."

This is the procedure for installing Golang on a Linux platform:

• Download the most recent version of Golang.Today is go1.21.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz (64 MB). (link: https://go.dev/dl/ )

• Extract the archive you just downloaded into /usr/local, creating a fresh Go tree in /usr/local/go . You may need to run the command as root or through sudo. (link: https://go.dev/doc/install )
  tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.21.4.linux-amd64.tar.gz

• Add /usr/local/go/bin to the PATH environment variable. You can do this by adding the following line to your /etc/profile. I like using the nano editor. Changes made to a profile file only apply after the next time you log into your computer.
  export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin

• Verify that you've installed Go by opening a command prompt:

jgust@jgust-All-Series:~$ go version
go version go1.21.4 linux/amd64

Verify Configuration of the environment:

jgust@jgust-All-Series:~$ go env
GO111MODULE=''
GOARCH='amd64'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/home/jgust/.cache/go-build'
GOENV='/home/jgust/.config/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFLAGS=''
GOHOSTARCH='amd64'
GOHOSTOS='linux'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMODCACHE='/home/jgust/go/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY=''
GONOSUMDB=''
GOOS='linux'
GOPATH='/home/jgust/go'         <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
GOPRIVATE=''
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/usr/local/go'             <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/linux_amd64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.21.4'            <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
GCCGO='gccgo'
GOAMD64='v1'
AR='ar'
CC='gcc'
CXX='g++'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
GOMOD='/dev/null'
GOWORK=''
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -m64 -pthread -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build2243355983=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches'
jgust@jgust-All-Series:~$ 

• Make a go directory at /home/"username"/
  GOPATH is the workspace of Go. Create some working directories at /home/"username"/go

mkdir bin 
mkdir pkg
mkdir programs
mkdir src

The bin directory contains the compiled binary executables.
The pkg directory contains compiled versions of the packages that your code depends on.
The src directory contains the source code of your projects and the installed dependencies.
At the programs directory, you may save your programs.

jgust@jgust-All-Series:~/go$ ls -l
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 2 jgust jgust 4096 nov 17 18:50 bin
drwxrwxr-x 2 jgust jgust 4096 nov 17 18:51 pkg
drwxrwxr-x 2 jgust jgust 4096 nov 17 18:52 programs
drwxrwxr-x 2 jgust jgust 4096 nov 17 18:51 src

[Gustavomurta]

Installing TinyGo on Ubuntu 22.04:

This is the procedure for installing TinyGo on a Linux platform:
https://tinygo.org/getting-started/install/linux/

• You can find the latest version of TinyGo in this link:
  https://github.com/tinygo-org/tinygo/releases

• Select downloads directory:
  cd /home/"username"/Downloads

• Download the TinyGo deb file from Github and install it using the following commands:

  wget https://github.com/tinygo-org/tinygo/releases/download/v0.30.0/tinygo_0.30.0_amd64.deb
  sudo dpkg -i tinygo_0.30.0_amd64.deb

• You can test that the installation is working properly by running this code which should display the version number:

  jgust@jgust-All-Series:~/Downloads$ tinygo version
  tinygo version 0.30.0 linux/amd64 (using go version go1.21.4 and LLVM version 16.0.1)

• Verify Configuration of the environment:

jgust@jgust-All-Series:~/Downloads$ tinygo env
GOOS="linux"
GOARCH="amd64"
GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
GOPATH="/home/jgust/go"
GOCACHE="/home/jgust/.cache/tinygo"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
TINYGOROOT="/usr/local/lib/tinygo"

• To flash TinyGo programs for AVR based processors such as the original Arduino Uno you must install avrdude:
  sudo apt-get install avrdude

• Some TinyGo commands:

jgust@jgust-All-Series:~/Downloads$ tinygo
No command-line arguments supplied.
TinyGo is a Go compiler for small places.
version: 0.30.0
usage: tinygo <command> [arguments]

commands:
  build:   compile packages and dependencies
  run:     compile and run immediately
  test:    test packages
  flash:   compile and flash to the device
  gdb:     run/flash and immediately enter GDB
  lldb:    run/flash and immediately enter LLDB
  monitor: open communication port
  env:     list environment variables used during build
  list:    run go list using the TinyGo root
  clean:   empty cache directory (/home/jgust/.cache/tinygo)
  targets: list targets
  info:    show info for specified target
  version: show version
  help:    print this help text
for more details, see https://tinygo.org/docs/reference/usage/