I want to install Go on CentOS 5.x, but Go website here http://golang.org/doc/install mentions that it is not supported.
Is there still some way to install Go Language on CentOS since CentOS is just a different flavour of Linux?
When I installed the same and ran the sample program hello.go mentioned at above website I got the error hello.go:3:8: import "fmt": cannot find package package runtime: import "runtime": cannot find package
I'm affraid you're out of luck because of the bit too much aged kernel version of CentOS 5.x. If the go runtime uses features simply not present in that kernel, then I see no easy way how it could work.
% export GOROOT=~/
% go run test.go
test.go:3:8: import "fmt": cannot find package
package runtime: import "runtime": cannot find package
Not finding the "runtime" package tells you that the $GOROOT enviroment variable isn't set to golang root directory. You need to set $GOROOT. Also you should set the $GOPATH variable if you use external packages (go help gopath for more information).
A typical setup (not specific to CentOS) would be:
export GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
export PATH="$GOROOT/bin:$PATH"
export GOPATH=/Users/rodowi/gocode
At least for some programs it works fine. I have a production program that I compile on RHEL 6.x and deploy on 5.x and 6.x and it is working without any problems.
Edit: I used to use it under 1.0.3, but a few months ago I upgraded to "tip go" (the soon to be 1.1 version). Under 1.x it'd crash on 5.9 when accepting a tcp connection but that was fixed a few days after I reported it on the mailing list.
http://dave.cheney.net/2013/06/18/how-to-install-go-1-1-on-centos-5
This page explains rather well what kernel primitives are missing from the CentOS-5 kernel, their impact, and possible fixes.
you could download the rpm package and begin installing locally, check below and download according to your OS:
http://pkgs.org/download/golang
or you could alternatively compile and build from source:
http://dave.cheney.net/2013/06/18/how-to-install-go-1-1-on-centos-5