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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&ensp;&ndash;&ensp;Fast Version Control System</h1>
  37
  38 <p>Git is an open source version control system
  39 designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency,
  40 but just as well suited for small personal repositories;
  41 it is especially popular in the open source community,
  42 serving as a development platform for projects like
  43 the <em>Linux Kernel</em>, <em>Ruby on Rails</em>, <em>WINE</em> or <em>X.org</em>.</p>
  44
  45 <p>Git falls in the category of distributed source code management tools,
  46 similar to e.g. <em>Mercurial</em> or <em>Bazaar</em>.
  47 Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with complete history
  48 and full revision tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access
  49 or a central server. Still, Git stays extremely fast and space efficient.</p>
  50
  51 <p>Git is an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</a> project covered by
  52 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl2.txt">GNU General Public License v2</a>.
  53 It was originally written by Linus Torvalds and is currently maintained by
  54 Junio C Hamano.</p>
  55
  56 <div style="border:1px solid; padding: 1em; margin: 1em; align: center">
  57 <strong>The <a href="http://www.survs.com/survey?id=M3PIVU72&channel=2WXE4BVTW8">Git User's Survey 2008</a>
  58 is up!</strong> Please take a short while to answer the questions so that we better
  59 understand how do you use Git and improve it even more.
  60 </div>
  61
  62
  63
  64
  65
  66 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  67         <tr class="odd" align="center"><td colspan="3"><b>Download GIT source package</b> <!--@DATE@-->[2008-08-24]</td></tr>
  68         <tr align="center"><td colspan="3">The latest stable Git release is <b><!--@VNUM@-->v1.6.0.1</b>:</td></tr>
  69         <tr align="center"><td colspan="3">
  70                 <table><tr><td>
  71                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.0.1.tar.bz2">tar.bz2</a>
  72                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.0.1.tar.bz2.sign">(sign)</a>
  73                 </td><td>
  74                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.0.1.tar.gz">tar.gz</a>
  75                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.0.1.tar.gz.sign">(sign)</a>
  76                 </td></tr></table>
  77         </td></tr>
  78         <tr class="odd" align="center">
  79                 <td><!--@NOTESLINK@--><a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/RelNotes-1.6.0.1.txt">Release notes</a></td>
  80                 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">More versions</a></td>
  81                 <td><a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git/">Browse history/code</a></td>
  82         </tr>
  83 </table></div>
  84
  85
  86 <hr />
  87
  88 <ul class="toc">
  89         <li><a href="#about">About Git</a></li>
  90         <li><a href="#documentation">Documentation</a></li>
  91         <li><a href="#download">Download</a></li>
  92         <li><a href="#tools">Related Tools</a></li>
  93         <li><a href="#community">Community and Development</a></li>
  94 </ul>
  95
  96
  97 <hr />
  98
  99 <h2 id="about">About Git</h2>
 100
 101 <div style="float: right">
 102 <table class="releases">
 103         <tr><th><a href="course/index.html">Git Crash Courses</a></th></tr>
 104         <tr><td align="center">
 105         <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gittutorial.html">Git for everyone</a>
 106         <!--
 107         <br /><a href="course/new.html">New to revision control?</a>
 108         -->
 109         <br /><a href="course/stgit.html">Maintaining external patches</a>
 110         <br /><a href="course/svn.html">Git for SVN users</a>
 111         <!-- <br /><em>More to come soon...</em> -->
 112         </td></tr>
 113 </table>
 114 </div>
 115
 116 <p>Git is distributed version control system focused on
 117 speed, effectivity and real-world usability on large projects.
 118 Its highlights include:</p>
 119
 120 <!-- Heavily inspired by Wikipedia -->
 121
 122 <ul>
 123
 124 <li>
 125 <b>Distributed development.</b>
 126 Like most other modern version control systems, Git gives each developer
 127 a local copy of the entire development history,
 128 and changes are copied from one such repository to another.
 129 These changes are imported as additional development branches,
 130 and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch.
 131 Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol
 132 (optionally wrapped in ssh for authentication and security)
 133 or simply using HTTP - you can publish your repository anywhere
 134 without <em>any</em> special webserver configuration required.
 135 </li>
 136
 137 <li>
 138 <b>Strong support for non-linear development.</b>
 139 Git supports rapid and convenient branching and merging,
 140 and includes powerful tools for visualizing
 141 and navigating a non-linear development history.
 142 </li>
 143
 144 <li>
 145 <b>Efficient handling of large projects.</b>
 146 Git is very fast and scales well
 147 even when working with large projects and long histories.
 148 It is commonly an order of magnitude faster
 149 than most other version control systems,
 150 and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations.
 151 It also uses an extremely efficient packed format
 152 for long-term revision storage
 153 that currently tops any other open source version control system.
 154 </li>
 155
 156 <li>
 157 <b>Cryptographic authentication of history.</b>
 158 The Git history is stored in such a way
 159 that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms)
 160 depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit.
 161 Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions
 162 without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.
 163 </li>
 164
 165 <li>
 166 <b>Toolkit design.</b>
 167 Following the Unix tradition,
 168 Git is a collection of many small tools written in C,
 169 and a number of scripts that provide convenient wrappers.
 170 Git provides tools for both convenient human usage and easy
 171 scripting to perform new clever operations.
 172 </li>
 173
 174 </ul>
 175
 176 <p>Besides providing a version control system,
 177 the Git project provides a generic low-level toolkit
 178 for tree history storage and directory content management.
 179 Traditionally, the toolkit is called the <em>plumbing</em>.
 180 Aside the user interface coming with Git itself,
 181 several other projects (so-called <em>porcelains</em>)
 182 offer compatible version control interfaces - see the
 183 <a href="#tools">related tools</a> list.</p>
 184
 185
 186 <hr />
 187
 188 <h2 id="documentation">Documentation</h2>
 189
 190 <p>You can find all the documentation bundled with the Git source code
 191 in the <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/"><code>Documentation/</code></a> subdirectory
 192 (the web version corresponds to the latest Git development version).</p>
 193
 194 <p>See <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gittutorial.html">the tutorial</a> to get started,
 195 then see <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/everyday.html">Everyday Git</a> for a useful minimum set of commands.
 196 Especially users migrating from other systems might appreciate the <a href="course/">Crash Courses</a>.
 197 See <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html">Git User's Manual</a> for a more in-depth introduction.
 198 You can find links to more useful documentation at the
 199 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitDocumentation">GitDocumentation</a> wiki page.</p>
 200
 201 <p>For a large and continuously growing resource of information
 202 about Git, you can refer to the <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Git Wiki</a>
 203 - you are welcome to contribute!</p>
 204
 205
 206 <hr />
 207
 208 <h2 id="download">Download</h2>
 209
 210 <p>The general download location for Git releases is
 211 <strong><a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/</a></strong>.
 212 You can also use one of many <a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">kernel.org mirrors</a>.</p>
 213
 214 <h3>Git by Git</h3>
 215
 216 <p>If you already have Git installed, you can get the latest
 217 development version via Git itself:</p>
 218 <pre>git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 219
 220 <p>If you have problems connecting (Git uses port 9418),
 221 you can try to access the repository over the HTTP protocol:</p>
 222 <pre>git clone http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 223 <p>(this method is considerably slower but works even behind
 224 firewalls and such).</p>
 225
 226 <p>You can also always browse the current contents
 227 of the git repository on web using the kernel.org
 228 <a href="http://kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">gitweb interface</a>.</p>
 229
 230 <h3>Binaries</h3>
 231
 232 <p>For people who prefer precompiled packages, these are available:</p>
 233
 234 <table class="bugmail">
 235
 236 <tr>
 237 <td colspan="2">RPMs</td>
 238 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/">http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/</a></td>
 239 </tr>
 240
 241 <tr class="odd">
 242 <td rowspan="3">Debs</td>
 243 <td>Stable</td>
 244 <td><a href="http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/g/git-core/">http://www.backports.org/debian/pool/main/g/git-core/</a></td>
 245 </tr>
 246 <tr>
 247 <td>Testing</td>
 248 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core</a></td>
 249 </tr>
 250 <tr class="odd">
 251 <td>Unstable</td>
 252 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core</a></td>
 253 </tr>
 254
 255 <tr>
 256 <td rowspan="2">Win</td>
 257 <td><a href="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a></td>
 258 <td><a href="http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe">http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe</a></td>
 259 </tr>
 260 <tr class="odd">
 261 <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/">msysGit</a></td>
 262 <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list">http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list</a></td>
 263 </tr>
 264
 265 <tr class="odd">
 266 <td rowspan="2">OS X</td>
 267 </tr>
 268 <tr>
 269 <td>Stable</td>
 270 <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/downloads/list?can=3">http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/downloads/list?can=3</a></td>
 271 </tr>
 272
 273 <tr>
 274 <td rowspan="3">Solaris</td>
 275 </tr>
 276 <tr class="odd">
 277 <td>v8&ndash;10</td>
 278 <td><a href="http://sunfreeware.com/">http://sunfreeware.com/</a></td>
 279 </tr>
 280
 281 </table>
 282
 283 <h3>Development snapshots</h3>
 284
 285 <p>Daily snapshots of the main Git development branch are available at
 286 <a href="http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/"
 287 >http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/</a>
 288 (thanks to Dave Jones).</p>
 289
 290
 291
 292 <hr />
 293
 294 <h2 id="tools">Related Tools</h2>
 295
 296 <p>Git is a true UNIX tool in the sense that it consists of many commands
 297 that do one thing well. It has been designed from the start to be easily
 298 wrapped in other tools and frontends. Currently, there are several
 299 interfaces offering more comfortable Git usage, and also graphical
 300 interfaces for browsing the history and more.</p>
 301
 302 <p>Traditionally, the low-level part of Git is called <em>plumbing</em>
 303 and the interfaces and frontends are called <em>porcelains</em>.
 304 Git itself comes with a default porcelain bundled and that is actually
 305 what you will normally mean when you say you use Git. However, there
 306 are several alternative porcelains which might offer considerably more
 307 user friendly interface or extend Git to perform some specialized tasks.</p>
 308
 309 <p>Below, the most widely used tools are listed. Please refer to
 310 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/InterfacesFrontendsAndTools">the corresponding wiki page</a>
 311 for a full list.</p>
 312
 313 <table>
 314 <tr valign="top">
 315
 316 <td>
 317 <h3>User Interface Tools</h3>
 318
 319 <dl>
 320
 321 <dt id="qgit">qgit</dt>
 322 <dd><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit">qgit</a> is a QT
 323 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories, similar to <em>gitk</em>
 324 but with more features.</dd>
 325
 326 <dt id="tig">Tig</dt>
 327 <dd><a href="http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/">tig</a>
 328 is a text-mode interface for Git. It acts as a repository browser
 329 that can also act as a pager for various Git commands
 330 and manage your index (on diff chunk level).</dd>
 331
 332 </dl>
 333 </td>
 334
 335 <td>
 336 <h3>Tools Shipped with Git</h3>
 337
 338 <dl>
 339
 340 <dt id="gitk">gitk</dt>
 341 <dd><a href="http://git.kernel.org/?p=gitk/gitk.git;a=summary">gitk</a>
 342 is the original TCL/TK GUI for browsing history of Git repositories.</dd>
 343
 344 <dt id="git-gui">Git-gui</dt>
 345 <dd><a href="http://www.spearce.org/category/projects/scm/git-gui/">git-gui</a>
 346 is a simple Tk based graphical interface for common Git
 347 operations.</dd>
 348
 349 <dt id="gitweb">gitweb</dt>
 350 <dd>gitweb provides a full-fledged <a href="http://git.kernel.org/">web interface</a>
 351 for Git repositories.</dd>
 352
 353 </dl>
 354 </td>
 355 </tr>
 356
 357 <tr valign="top">
 358 <td>
 359 <h3>Version Control Interface layers</h3>
 360
 361 <dl>
 362
 363 <dt id="stgit">StGIT</dt>
 364 <dd><a href="http://www.procode.org/stgit/">Stacked Git</a> provides
 365 a <em>Quilt</em>-like patch management functionality in the Git environment.
 366 You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get
 367 merged upstream.</dd>
 368
 369 <dt id="guilt">Guilt</dt>
 370 <dd><a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jsipek/guilt/">Guilt</a>
 371 is another patch management tool, closer to the spirit of <em>Quilt</em>
 372 than StGIT.</dd>
 373
 374 <dt id="cogito">Cogito</dt>
 375 <dd><a href="http://git.or.cz/cogito/">Cogito</a>
 376 was a popular version control system on top of Git,
 377 aiming at seamless user interface and ease of use.
 378 It provided much better user interface in the past
 379 but later improvements of Git made it mostly obsolete
 380 and it is not maintained anymore.
 381 Please migrate to Git itself.</dd>
 382
 383 </dl>
 384 </td>
 385
 386 <td>
 387 <h3>Public Hosting</h3>
 388
 389 <p>Several public Git hosting sites are available and open for anyone
 390 to host their pet projects:</p>
 391
 392 <dl>
 393 <dt id="repo">repo.or.cz</dt>
 394 <dd><a href="http://repo.or.cz/">repo.or.cz</a> is the oldest hosting site,
 395 accomodating many hundreds of projects, with open-sourced infrastructure
 396 and aimed at open source software. It provides full push features as well
 397 as simple mirroring mode and gitweb interface with various enhancements.</dd>
 398
 399 <dt id="github">GitHub</dt>
 400 <dd><a href="http://github.com/">GitHub</a> provides both free hosting for
 401 smaller projects and paid options for private hosting and large-sized projects.
 402 It uses a custom web interface including a wiki hosting and puts emphasis
 403 on social networking of project developers.</dd>
 404
 405 <dt id="gitorious">Gitorious</dt>
 406 <dd><a href="http://gitorious.org/">Gitorious</a> is another free hosting
 407 site with a custom web interface, supporting multiple repositories per project,
 408 local installations and with open source code.</dd>
 409
 410 </dl>
 411
 412 <p style="text-align: right; font-size: small"><a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitHosting">more sites</a></p>
 413 </td>
 414 </tr>
 415
 416 </table>
 417
 418
 419 <hr />
 420
 421 <h2 id="community">Community and Development</h2>
 422
 423 <p>Git was initially written by Linus Torvalds
 424 with help of a group of hackers 'round the net.
 425 It is currently maintained by
 426 Junio C Hamano.</p>
 427
 428 <p>The user discussion and development of Git and most tools related to Git
 429 takes place on the Git mailing list - everyone is welcome to post
 430 bug reports, feature requests, comments and
 431 <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git?a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/SubmittingPatches;hb=HEAD">patches</a>
 432 to <a href="mailto:git@vger.kernel.org">git@vger.kernel.org</a>.
 433 To <a href="mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org?body=subscribe%20git">subscribe</a>
 434 to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to
 435 majordomo@vger.kernel.org.
 436 The mailing list archives are available at
 437 <a href="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git">Gmane</a>
 438 and <a href="http://marc.info/?l=git">MARC</a>.</p>
 439
 440 <p>You can also visit the IRC channel dedicated to Git -
 441 meet us at <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#git">#git on FreeNode</a>.</p>
 442
 443 <p>This website itself is tracked in Git as well -
 444 you can
 445 <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git-homepage.git">browse its development history</a>
 446 or even clone it from http://repo.or.cz/r/git-homepage.git.
 447 The site is covered by GPLv2
 448 and maintained by <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">Petr Baudis</a>
 449 who always takes patches eagerly. ;-)
 450 The web is based on a design by <a href="mailto:fonseca@diku.dk">Jonas Fonseca</a>
 451 for the <a href="http://elinks.cz">ELinks homepage</a>.</p>
 452
 453
 454 <hr />
 455
 456 <div class="footer">
 457         <span class="menu">
 458                 This page is maintained by Petr Baudis. Please email me
 459                 at <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">pasky@suse.cz</a>
 460                 with patches, suggestions and comments.
 461         </span>
 462 </div>
 463
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