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   6         <title>Git - Fast Version Control System</title>
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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://www.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 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/gpl.txt">GNU General Public License</a>.
  50 It was originally written by Linus Torvalds and is currently maintained by
  51 Junio C Hamano.</p>
  52
  53 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  54         <tr class="odd" align="center"><td colspan="2"><!--@DATE@-->[1970-01-01]</td></tr>
  55         <tr align="center"><td colspan="2">The latest stable Git release is <b><!--@VNUM@--></b>:</td></tr>
  56         <tr align="center"><td>
  57                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-.tar.bz2">tar.bz2</a>
  58                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-.tar.bz2.sign">(sign)</a>
  59                 </td><td>
  60                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-.tar.gz">tar.gz</a>
  61                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-.tar.gz.sign">(sign)</a>
  62         </td></tr>
  63         <tr class="odd" align="center">
  64                 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">More versions</a></td>
  65                 <td><a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git/">Browse history/code</a></td>
  66         </tr>
  67 </table></div>
  68
  69
  70 <hr />
  71
  72 <ul>
  73         <li><a href="#about">About Git</a></li>
  74         <li><a href="#documentation">Git Documentation</a></li>
  75         <li><a href="#download">Getting Git</a></li>
  76         <li><a href="#tools">Related Tools</a></li>
  77         <li><a href="#community">Community and Development</a></li>
  78 </ul>
  79
  80
  81 <hr />
  82
  83 <h2 id="about">About Git</h2>
  84
  85 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  86         <tr><th><a href="course/index.html">Git Crash Courses</a></th></tr>
  87         <tr><td align="center">
  88         <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html">Git for everyone</a>
  89         <!--
  90         <br /><a href="course/new.html">New to revision control?</a>
  91         -->
  92         <br /><a href="course/stgit.html">Maintaining external patches</a>
  93         <br /><a href="course/cvs.html">Cogito for CVS users</a>
  94         <br /><a href="course/svn.html">Cogito for SVN users</a>
  95         <br /><em>More to come soon...</em>
  96         </tr></td>
  97 </table></div>
  98
  99 <p>Git is distributed version control system focused on
 100 speed, effectivity and real-world usability on large projects.
 101 Its highlights include:</p>
 102
 103 <!-- Heavily inspired by Wikipedia -->
 104
 105 <ul>
 106
 107 <li>
 108 <b>Strong support for non-linear development.</b>
 109 Git supports rapid and convenient branching and merging,
 110 and includes powerful tools for visualizing
 111 and navigating a non-linear development history.
 112 </li>
 113
 114 <li>
 115 <b>Distributed development.</b>
 116 Like BitKeeper and SVK, Git gives each developer
 117 a local copy of the entire development history,
 118 and changes are copied from one such repository to another.
 119 These changes are imported as additional development branches,
 120 and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch.
 121 Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol
 122 (optionally wrapped in ssh) or simply using HTTP - you can publish
 123 your repository anywhere without <em>any</em> special webserver
 124 configuration required.
 125 </li>
 126
 127 <li>
 128 <b>Efficient handling of large projects.</b>
 129 Git is very fast and scales well
 130 even when working with large projects and long histories.
 131 It is commonly an order of magnitude faster
 132 than most other revision control systems,
 133 and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations.
 134 It also uses an extremely efficient packed format
 135 for long-term revision storage
 136 that currently tops any other open source version control system.
 137 </li>
 138
 139 <li>
 140 <b>Cryptographic authentication of history.</b>
 141 The Git history is stored in such a way
 142 that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms)
 143 depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit.
 144 Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions
 145 without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.
 146 </li>
 147
 148 <li>
 149 <b>Toolkit design.</b>
 150 Following the Unix tradition,
 151 Git is a collection of many small tools written in C,
 152 and a number of scripts that provide convenient wrappers.
 153 It is easy to chain the components together to do other clever things.
 154 </li>
 155
 156 </ul>
 157
 158 <p>Besides providing a version control system,
 159 the Git project provides a generic low-level toolkit
 160 for tree history storage and directory content management.
 161 Traditionally, the toolkit is called the <em>plumbing</em>.
 162 Several other projects (so-called <em>porcelains</em>)
 163 offer compatible version control interfaces - see the
 164 <a href="#tools">related tools</a> list.</p>
 165
 166 <p>Some other projects have taken the concepts from the Git project
 167 and are either porting an existing toolset to use the Git tools,
 168 or reimplementing the concepts internally,
 169 to benefit from the performance improvements.
 170 This includes e.g.
 171 <a href="http://darcs.net/DarcsWiki/DarcsGit">Darcs-git</a>.</li>
 172
 173
 174 <hr />
 175
 176 <h2 id="documentation">Git Documentation</h2>
 177
 178 <p>You can find all the documentation bundled with the Git source code
 179 in the <code>Documentation/</code> subdirectory. In addition, you can
 180 also <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/">read the web version</a>
 181 (corresponding to the latest Git development version).</p>
 182
 183 <p>For a quick start, the
 184 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html">tutorial</a>
 185 covers the basics. See the
 186 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/everyday.html">Everyday Git</a>
 187 handbook for a useful minimum set of commands
 188 depending on your style of Git usage.
 189 Additionally, the
 190 <a href="http://linux.yyz.us/git-howto.html">Kernel Hacker's Git Tutorial</a>
 191 by Jeff Garzik may be useful.</p>
 192
 193 <p>For a large and continuously growing resource of information
 194 about Git, you can refer to the <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Git Wiki</a>
 195 - you are welcome to contribute!</p>
 196
 197
 198 <hr />
 199
 200 <h2 id="download">Getting Git</h2>
 201
 202 <p>The general download location for Git releases is
 203 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/</a>.
 204 You can also use one of many <a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">kernel.org mirrors</a>.</p>
 205
 206 <h3>Binaries</h3>
 207
 208 <p>For people who prefer precompiled packages, these are available:</p>
 209
 210 <table class="bugmail">
 211
 212 <tr>
 213 <td colspan="2">RPMs</td>
 214 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/">http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/</a></td>
 215 </tr>
 216
 217 <tr class="odd">
 218 <td rowspan="3">Debs</td>
 219 <td>Stable</td>
 220 <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>
 221 </tr>
 222 <tr>
 223 <td>Testing</td>
 224 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core</a></td>
 225 </tr>
 226 <tr class="odd">
 227 <td>Unstable</td>
 228 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core</a></td>
 229 </tr>
 230 </td>
 231
 232 </table>
 233
 234 <h3>Development snapshots</h3>
 235
 236 <p>Daily snapshots of the main Git development branch are available at
 237 <a href="http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/"
 238 >http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/</a>
 239 (thanks to Dave Jones).</p>
 240
 241 <h3>Git by git</h3>
 242
 243 <p>If you already have Git installed, you can get the latest
 244 development version via Git itself:
 245 <pre>git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 246 </p>
 247
 248 <p>If you have problems connecting (Git uses port 9418),
 249 you can try to access the repository over the HTTP protocol:
 250 <pre>git clone http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 251 (this method is considerably slower but works even behind
 252 firewalls and such).
 253 </p>
 254
 255 <p>You can also always browse the current contents
 256 of the git repository on web using the kernel.org
 257 <a href="http://kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">gitweb interface</a>.</p>
 258
 259
 260 <hr />
 261
 262 <h2 id="tools">Related Tools</h2>
 263
 264 <p>Git is a true UNIX tool in the sense that it consists of many commands
 265 that do one thing well. It has been designed from the start to be easily
 266 wrapped in other tools and frontends. Currently, there are several
 267 interfaces offering more comfortable Git usage, and also graphical
 268 interfaces for browsing the history and more.</p>
 269
 270 <p>Traditionally, the low-level part of Git is called <em>plumbing</em>
 271 and the interfaces and frontends are called <em>porcelains</em>.
 272 Git itself comes with a default porcelain bundled and that is actually
 273 what you will normally mean when you say you use Git. However, there
 274 are several alternative porcelains which might offer considerably more
 275 user friendly interface or extend Git to perform some specialied tasks.</p>
 276
 277 <p>There is a <strong>public Git hosting</strong> available for your
 278 pet project, either mirroring your project or letting you push, and providing
 279 a gitweb interface, at <a href="http://repo.or.cz/">http://repo.or.cz/</a>.</p>
 280
 281 <h3>Version Control Interface layers</h3>
 282
 283 <dl>
 284
 285 <dt id="cogito">Cogito</dt>
 286 <dd>
 287 <a href="http://git.or.cz/cogito/">Cogito</a>
 288 is a popular version control system on top of Git.
 289 It aims at seamless user interface and ease of use, providing
 290 generally smoother user experience than the "raw" Git interface
 291 and indeed also many other version control systems. However, it
 292 also lacks many advanced capabilities of Git and is currently
 293 being slowly phased out.</dd>
 294
 295 <dt id="stgit">StGIT</dt>
 296 <dd><a href="http://www.procode.org/stgit/">Stacked Git</a> provides
 297 a <em>Quilt</em>-like patch management functionality in the Git environment.
 298 You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get
 299 merged upstream.</dd>
 300
 301 <dt id="git-gui">Git-gui</dt>
 302 <dd><a href="http://www.spearce.org/2007/01/git-gui-screenshots.html">git-gui</a>
 303 is a simple Tk based graphical interface for common Git
 304 operations. Git-gui is shipped with Git.
 305 </dd>
 306
 307 </dl>
 308
 309 <h3>History Visualization</h3>
 310
 311 <dl>
 312
 313 <dt id="qgit">qgit</dt>
 314 <dd><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit">qgit</a> is a QT
 315 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories, similar to <em>gitk</em>
 316 (a simple GUI in TCL/TK distributed with stock Git)
 317 but with more features.</dd>
 318
 319 <dt id="gitweb">gitweb</dt>
 320 <dd>gitweb provides full-fledged <a href="http://www.kernel.org/git/">web interface</a>
 321 for Git repositories. (gitweb is now part of the core Git distribution. Installation
 322 is straightforward - take the <tt>gitweb/</tt> directory and make it accessible on the
 323 web at a place with CGIs enabled. Then just tweak the configuration at the top of the
 324 <tt>gitweb/gitweb.cgi</tt> script.)</dd>
 325
 326 </dl>
 327
 328
 329 <hr />
 330
 331 <h2 id="community">Community and Development</h2>
 332
 333 <p>Git was initially written by Linus Torvalds
 334 with help of a group of hackers 'round the net.
 335 It is currently maintained by
 336 Junio C Hamano.</p>
 337
 338 <p>The user discussion and development of Git, Cogito and other tools related to Git
 339 takes place on the Git mailing list - everyone is welcome to post
 340 bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to
 341 <a href="mailto:git@vger.kernel.org">git@vger.kernel.org</a>.
 342 To <a href="mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org?body=subscribe%20git">subscribe</a>
 343 to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to
 344 majordomo@vger.kernel.org.
 345 The mailing list archives are available at
 346 <a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git">http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git</a>.</p>
 347
 348 <p>You can also visit the IRC channel dedicated to Git -
 349 meet us at <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#git">#git at FreeNode</a>.</p>
 350
 351 <p>This website itself is tracked in Git as well -
 352 you can
 353 <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git-homepage.git">browse its development history</a>
 354 or even clone it from http://repo.or.cz/r/git-homepage.git.
 355 The site is covered by GPLv2
 356 and maintained by <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">Petr Baudis</a>
 357 who always takes patches eagerly. ;-)
 358 The web is based on a design by <a href="mailto:fonseca@diku.dk">Jonas Fonseca</a>
 359 for the <a href="http://elinks.cz">ELinks homepage</a>.</p>
 360
 361
 362 <hr />
 363
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 365         <span class="menu">
 366                 This page is maintained by Petr Baudis. Please email me
 367                 at <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">pasky@suse.cz</a>
 368                 with patches, suggestions and comments.
 369         </span>
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