flapak-vscode-as-go-ide

This repo describe a possible installation of go (golang) useful to interact with it using vscode installed from flatpak

the problem

If you have installed the vscode Visual Studio Code using flatpak, after the go installation you probably meet this error:

and whatever 'environment set' (GOROOT in this case) you try to do, the error persist!

The problem is generated by the "different installation context". Because the flatpak apps runs "inside a sandbox" with a dedicated context. In fact if you read (like above) the error, you can see a "strange PATH", like: PATH(/app/bin:/app/local/bin ...) and GOROOT() despite your local machine has a different $PATH env and a well-defined $GOROOT env.

the idea

The idea has been to set some environment variables to flatpak configuration with an injected shared context! You can do this configuring the file:

/var/lib/flatpak/overrides

adding (or modifying) this sections:

[Context]
filesystems=<your-shared-context-path>

[Environment]
GOROOT=<the-goroot-path>

but... there was one more problem! Because the "default" path installation proposed by Google is /usr/local/go and this path is a private path in flatpak sandbox! and then if you use as GOROOT path the Google proposed path (/usr/local/go) like this:

[Context]
filesystems=/usr/local/go

[Environment]
GOROOT=/usr/local/go/bin

flatpak return an error like this: /usr is a private path.

the solution

The solution is to install go to no private path (flatpak side), and overrides a default flatpak configuration like above.

the steps

• remove aol go installation
• download tar archive from the go site
• unpack the tar archive to custom (no private) directory
• edit $HOME/.bashrc (adding/editing the environment vars)
• reload the $HOME/.bashrc
• check go command (eg: go env)
• edit the file /var/lib/flatpak/overrides/global (or run the flatpak command)

you can find the beloved steps inside the script.sh. You can run as-is or c&p approach.

NOTE: my preferred installation path is $HOME/.golang (that is != $HOME/go)

the result

After to complete this configuration, you can see the go compiler message under the 'PROBLEM' tab

howto

How to run this script?

./script {go_version} {arch}

example

./script go1.21.4 linux-amd64