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   6         <title>Git - Fast Version Control System</title>
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   8         <meta name="author" content="Petr Baudis" />
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  22 <table border="1" summary="Navigation links" class="header" width="100%"><tr><td>
  23         <a href="index.html" id="top"><img src="git-logo.png" width="72" height="27" alt="Git"
  24                 style="border-width:0px;"/></a>
  25         <span class="hide">:</span>
  26         <span class="menu">
  27                 <a href="index.html">Home</a> |
  28                 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/">Documentation</a> |
  29                 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitFaq">FAQ</a> |
  30                 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Wiki</a> |
  31                 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">Download Site</a> |
  32                 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">Git's Gitweb</a>
  33         </span>
  34 </td></tr></table>
  35
  36 <h1>Git - Fast Version Control System</h1>
  37
  38 <p>Git is a popular version control system
  39 designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency;
  40 it is used mainly for various open source projects,
  41 most notably the Linux kernel.</p>
  42
  43 <p>Git falls in the category of distributed source code management tools,
  44 similar to e.g. GNU Arch or Monotone (or BitKeeper in the proprietary world).
  45 Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with full revision
  46 tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server.</p>
  47
  48 <p>Git is an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</a> project covered by
  49 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl2.txt">GNU General Public License v2</a>.
  50 It was originally written by Linus Torvalds and is currently maintained by
  51 Junio C Hamano.</p>
  52
  53 <p><strong><a href="http://www.survey.net.nz/survey.php?94e135ff41e871a1ea5bcda3ee1856d9">The Git User Survey</a> is up now! Please devote a few minutes of your time to fill this simple questionnaire, it will help a lot the git community to understand your needs, what you like of GIT, and of course what you don't like  of it.</strong></p>
  54
  55
  56 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  57         <tr class="odd" align="center"><td colspan="2"><!--@DATE@-->[2007-08-16]</td></tr>
  58         <tr align="center"><td colspan="2">The latest stable Git release is <b><!--@VNUM@-->v1.5.2.5</b>:</td></tr>
  59         <tr align="center"><td>
  60                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.2.5.tar.bz2">tar.bz2</a>
  61                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.2.5.tar.bz2.sign">(sign)</a>
  62                 </td><td>
  63                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.2.5.tar.gz">tar.gz</a>
  64                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.2.5.tar.gz.sign">(sign)</a>
  65         </td></tr>
  66         <tr class="odd" align="center">
  67                 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">More versions</a></td>
  68                 <td><a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git/">Browse history/code</a></td>
  69         </tr>
  70 </table></div>
  71
  72
  73 <hr />
  74
  75 <ul>
  76         <li><a href="#about">About Git</a></li>
  77         <li><a href="#documentation">Git Documentation</a></li>
  78         <li><a href="#download">Getting Git</a></li>
  79         <li><a href="#tools">Related Tools</a></li>
  80         <li><a href="#community">Community and Development</a></li>
  81 </ul>
  82
  83
  84 <hr />
  85
  86 <h2 id="about">About Git</h2>
  87
  88 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  89         <tr><th><a href="course/index.html">Git Crash Courses</a></th></tr>
  90         <tr><td align="center">
  91         <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html">Git for everyone</a>
  92         <!--
  93         <br /><a href="course/new.html">New to revision control?</a>
  94         -->
  95         <br /><a href="course/stgit.html">Maintaining external patches</a>
  96         <br /><a href="course/svn.html">Git for SVN users</a>
  97         <br /><a href="course/cvs.html">Cogito for CVS users</a>
  98         <br /><em>More to come soon...</em>
  99         </tr></td>
 100 </table></div>
 101
 102 <p>Git is distributed version control system focused on
 103 speed, effectivity and real-world usability on large projects.
 104 Its highlights include:</p>
 105
 106 <!-- Heavily inspired by Wikipedia -->
 107
 108 <ul>
 109
 110 <li>
 111 <b>Strong support for non-linear development.</b>
 112 Git supports rapid and convenient branching and merging,
 113 and includes powerful tools for visualizing
 114 and navigating a non-linear development history.
 115 </li>
 116
 117 <li>
 118 <b>Distributed development.</b>
 119 Like most other modern version control systems, Git gives each developer
 120 a local copy of the entire development history,
 121 and changes are copied from one such repository to another.
 122 These changes are imported as additional development branches,
 123 and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch.
 124 Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol
 125 (optionally wrapped in ssh) or simply using HTTP - you can publish
 126 your repository anywhere without <em>any</em> special webserver
 127 configuration required.
 128 </li>
 129
 130 <li>
 131 <b>Efficient handling of large projects.</b>
 132 Git is very fast and scales well
 133 even when working with large projects and long histories.
 134 It is commonly an order of magnitude faster
 135 than most other revision control systems,
 136 and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations.
 137 It also uses an extremely efficient packed format
 138 for long-term revision storage
 139 that currently tops any other open source version control system.
 140 </li>
 141
 142 <li>
 143 <b>Cryptographic authentication of history.</b>
 144 The Git history is stored in such a way
 145 that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms)
 146 depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit.
 147 Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions
 148 without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.
 149 </li>
 150
 151 <li>
 152 <b>Toolkit design.</b>
 153 Following the Unix tradition,
 154 Git is a collection of many small tools written in C,
 155 and a number of scripts that provide convenient wrappers.
 156 It is easy to chain the components together to do other clever things.
 157 </li>
 158
 159 </ul>
 160
 161 <p>Besides providing a version control system,
 162 the Git project provides a generic low-level toolkit
 163 for tree history storage and directory content management.
 164 Traditionally, the toolkit is called the <em>plumbing</em>.
 165 Several other projects (so-called <em>porcelains</em>)
 166 offer compatible version control interfaces - see the
 167 <a href="#tools">related tools</a> list.</p>
 168
 169 <p>Some other projects have taken the concepts from the Git project
 170 and are either porting an existing toolset to use the Git tools,
 171 or reimplementing the concepts internally,
 172 to benefit from the performance improvements.
 173 This includes e.g.
 174 <a href="http://darcs.net/DarcsWiki/DarcsGit">Darcs-git</a>.</li>
 175
 176
 177 <hr />
 178
 179 <h2 id="documentation">Git Documentation</h2>
 180
 181 <p>You can find all the documentation bundled with the Git source code
 182 in the <code>Documentation/</code> subdirectory. In addition, you can
 183 also <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/">read the web version</a>
 184 (corresponding to the latest Git development version).</p>
 185
 186 <p>For a quick start, the
 187 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html">tutorial</a>
 188 covers the basics. See the
 189 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/everyday.html">Everyday Git</a>
 190 handbook for a useful minimum set of commands
 191 depending on your style of Git usage.
 192 Additionally, the
 193 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html">Git User's Manual</a>
 194 may be useful. You can find more documents in
 195 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitDocumentation">GitDocumentation</a>.</p>
 196
 197 <p>For a large and continuously growing resource of information
 198 about Git, you can refer to the <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Git Wiki</a>
 199 - you are welcome to contribute!</p>
 200
 201
 202 <hr />
 203
 204 <h2 id="download">Getting Git</h2>
 205
 206 <p>The general download location for Git releases is
 207 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/</a>.
 208 You can also use one of many <a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">kernel.org mirrors</a>.</p>
 209
 210 <h3>Binaries</h3>
 211
 212 <p>For people who prefer precompiled packages, these are available:</p>
 213
 214 <table class="bugmail">
 215
 216 <tr>
 217 <td colspan="2">RPMs</td>
 218 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/">http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/</a></td>
 219 </tr>
 220
 221 <tr class="odd">
 222 <td rowspan="3">Debs</td>
 223 <td>Stable</td>
 224 <td><a href="http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/g/git-core/">http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/g/git-core/</a></dd></td>
 225 </tr>
 226 <tr>
 227 <td>Testing</td>
 228 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core</a></td>
 229 </tr>
 230 <tr class="odd">
 231 <td>Unstable</td>
 232 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core</a></td>
 233 </tr>
 234 </td>
 235
 236 </table>
 237
 238 <h3>Development snapshots</h3>
 239
 240 <p>Daily snapshots of the main Git development branch are available at
 241 <a href="http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/"
 242 >http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/</a>
 243 (thanks to Dave Jones).</p>
 244
 245 <h3>Git by git</h3>
 246
 247 <p>If you already have Git installed, you can get the latest
 248 development version via Git itself:
 249 <pre>git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 250 </p>
 251
 252 <p>If you have problems connecting (Git uses port 9418),
 253 you can try to access the repository over the HTTP protocol:
 254 <pre>git clone http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 255 (this method is considerably slower but works even behind
 256 firewalls and such).
 257 </p>
 258
 259 <p>You can also always browse the current contents
 260 of the git repository on web using the kernel.org
 261 <a href="http://kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">gitweb interface</a>.</p>
 262
 263
 264 <hr />
 265
 266 <h2 id="tools">Related Tools</h2>
 267
 268 <p>Git is a true UNIX tool in the sense that it consists of many commands
 269 that do one thing well. It has been designed from the start to be easily
 270 wrapped in other tools and frontends. Currently, there are several
 271 interfaces offering more comfortable Git usage, and also graphical
 272 interfaces for browsing the history and more.</p>
 273
 274 <p>Traditionally, the low-level part of Git is called <em>plumbing</em>
 275 and the interfaces and frontends are called <em>porcelains</em>.
 276 Git itself comes with a default porcelain bundled and that is actually
 277 what you will normally mean when you say you use Git. However, there
 278 are several alternative porcelains which might offer considerably more
 279 user friendly interface or extend Git to perform some specialized tasks.</p>
 280
 281 <p>There is a <strong>public Git hosting</strong> available for your
 282 pet project, either mirroring your project or letting you push, and providing
 283 a gitweb interface, at <a href="http://repo.or.cz/">http://repo.or.cz/</a>.</p>
 284
 285 <h3>Version Control Interface layers</h3>
 286
 287 <dl>
 288
 289 <dt id="cogito">Cogito</dt>
 290 <dd>
 291 <a href="http://git.or.cz/cogito/">Cogito</a>
 292 is a popular version control system on top of Git.
 293 It aims at seamless user interface and ease of use, providing
 294 generally smoother user experience than the "raw" Git interface
 295 and indeed also many other version control systems. However, it
 296 also lacks many advanced capabilities of Git and is currently
 297 being slowly phased out.</dd>
 298
 299 <dt id="stgit">StGIT</dt>
 300 <dd><a href="http://www.procode.org/stgit/">Stacked Git</a> provides
 301 a <em>Quilt</em>-like patch management functionality in the Git environment.
 302 You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get
 303 merged upstream.</dd>
 304
 305 <dt id="git-gui">Git-gui</dt>
 306 <dd><a href="http://www.spearce.org/2007/01/git-gui-screenshots.html">git-gui</a>
 307 is a simple Tk based graphical interface for common Git
 308 operations. Git-gui is shipped with Git.
 309 </dd>
 310
 311 </dl>
 312
 313 <h3>History Visualization</h3>
 314
 315 <dl>
 316
 317 <dt id="gitk">gitk</dt>
 318 <dd><a href="http://git.kernel.org/?p=gitk/gitk.git;a=summary">gitk</a> is a TCL/TK
 319 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories. Developed separately but
 320 distributed with stock Git.</dd>
 321
 322 <dt id="qgit">qgit</dt>
 323 <dd><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit">qgit</a> is a QT
 324 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories, similar to <em>gitk</em>
 325 but with more features.</dd>
 326
 327 <dt id="gitweb">gitweb</dt>
 328 <dd>gitweb provides full-fledged <a href="http://git.kernel.org/">web interface</a>
 329 for Git repositories. gitweb is now part of the core Git distribution.</dd>
 330
 331 </dl>
 332
 333
 334 <hr />
 335
 336 <h2 id="community">Community and Development</h2>
 337
 338 <p>Git was initially written by Linus Torvalds
 339 with help of a group of hackers 'round the net.
 340 It is currently maintained by
 341 Junio C Hamano.</p>
 342
 343 <p>The user discussion and development of Git, Cogito and other tools related to Git
 344 takes place on the Git mailing list - everyone is welcome to post
 345 bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to
 346 <a href="mailto:git@vger.kernel.org">git@vger.kernel.org</a>.
 347 To <a href="mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org?body=subscribe%20git">subscribe</a>
 348 to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to
 349 majordomo@vger.kernel.org.
 350 The mailing list archives are available at
 351 <a href="http://marc.info/?l=git">http://marc.info/?l=git</a>.</p>
 352
 353 <p>You can also visit the IRC channel dedicated to Git -
 354 meet us at <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#git">#git at FreeNode</a>.</p>
 355
 356 <p>This website itself is tracked in Git as well -
 357 you can
 358 <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git-homepage.git">browse its development history</a>
 359 or even clone it from http://repo.or.cz/r/git-homepage.git.
 360 The site is covered by GPLv2
 361 and maintained by <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">Petr Baudis</a>
 362 who always takes patches eagerly. ;-)
 363 The web is based on a design by <a href="mailto:fonseca@diku.dk">Jonas Fonseca</a>
 364 for the <a href="http://elinks.cz">ELinks homepage</a>.</p>
 365
 366
 367 <hr />
 368
 369 <div class="footer">
 370         <span class="menu">
 371                 This page is maintained by Petr Baudis. Please email me
 372                 at <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">pasky@suse.cz</a>
 373                 with patches, suggestions and comments.
 374         </span>
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