x/website: clarify Linux installation instructions regarding root/sudo permissions

[wesleybertipaglia]

What is the URL of the page with the issue?

https://go.dev/doc/install

What is your user agent?

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/135.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Screenshot

No response

What did you do?

1. Follow the official installation instructions for Go on Linux: https://go.dev/doc/install

2. They attempt to run the command with a single sudo prefix, e.g.:

sudo rm -rf /usr/local/go && tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.24.2.linux-amd64.tar.gz

3. The rm command runs with elevated permissions, but tar does not, leading to permission denied errors.

What did you see happen?

The Linux installation instructions may confuse new users into running a combined rm && tar command with a single sudo, causing permission errors during extraction.

The documentation currently says:

(You may need to run the command as root or through sudo).

This can be confusing, as new users often try to run both steps with a single sudo, which only applies to the first command. A small rewording could improve clarity without changing the overall tone.

What did you expect to see?

The Go installation completes successfully without permission errors.

Suggested alternative:

(You may need to run each command separately with the necessary permissions, as root or through sudo).

This makes it clearer that both commands might require elevated permissions individually.

I'd be happy to submit a PR with this change, if appropriate, as a first contribution.

[gabyhelp]

Related Issues

• x/website: wrong command for installing the go for wsl linux distro #68890 (closed)
• Installation error of 1.21.0 on Linux: wrong permissions after uncompress tar file. #62479 (closed)
• There should be sudo before rm and tar in the Linux installation instructions. #72998 (closed)

_{(Emoji vote if this was helpful or unhelpful; more detailed feedback welcome in this discussion.)}

[wesleybertipaglia]

Related Issues

• x/website: wrong command for installing the go for wsl linux distro #68890 (closed)
• Installation error of 1.21.0 on Linux: wrong permissions after uncompress tar file. #62479 (closed)
• There should be sudo before rm and tar in the Linux installation instructions. #72998 (closed)

(Emoji vote if this was helpful or unhelpful; more detailed feedback welcome in this discussion.)

I've noticed that similar issues have been closed before, perhaps due to requests to change the command itself.
Just to be clear: my suggestion is not to change the command, but rather to improve the surrounding text to avoid common confusion while preserving its current structure.
Let me know if there are any obstacles to this, or if you'd rather I drop the PR idea.

[dmitshur]

Your suggested alternative sounds good. Please go ahead and send the change. See https://go.dev/doc/contribute.

One minor suggestion, since that is a complete sentence inside the parentheses, let's also move the period to be inside.

[wesleybertipaglia]

Your suggested alternative sounds good. Please go ahead and send the change. See https://go.dev/doc/contribute.

One minor suggestion, since that is a complete sentence inside the parentheses, let's also move the period to be inside.

Thanks for the clarification! That makes perfect sense. I’ll apply the suggestion and send the change later today.

[gopherbot]

Change https://go.dev/cl/664597 mentions this issue: doc: clarify Linux install instructions regarding permissions