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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>
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  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">Wiki</a> |
  30                 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">Download Site</a> |
  31                 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">Git's Gitweb</a>
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  33 </td></tr></table>
  34
  35 <h1>Git - Fast Version Control System</h1>
  36
  37 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  38         <tr align="center"><td>[2006-06-10]</td></tr>
  39         <tr align="center"><td>The latest stable<br />Git release is <b>v1.4.1</b>:</td></tr>
  40         <tr align="center"><td>
  41                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.4.1.tar.bz2">tar.bz2</a>
  42                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.4.1.tar.bz2.sign">(sign)</a><br />
  43                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.4.1.tar.gz">tar.gz</a>
  44                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.4.1.tar.gz.sign">(sign)</a><br />
  45         </td></tr>
  46         <tr class="odd" align="center">
  47                 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">More versions</a></td>
  48         </tr>
  49 </table></div>
  50
  51 <p>Git is popular version control system
  52 designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency;
  53 it is used mainly for various open source projects,
  54 most notably the Linux kernel.</p>
  55
  56 <p>Git falls in the category of distributed source code management tools,
  57 similar to e.g. GNU Arch or Monotone (or BitKeeper in the commercial world).
  58 Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with full revision
  59 tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server.</p>
  60
  61 <p>Git is an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</a> project covered by
  62 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt">GNU General Public License</a>.
  63 It was originally written by Linus Torvalds and is currently maintained by
  64 Junio C Hamano.</p>
  65
  66
  67 <hr />
  68
  69 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  70         <tr><th>Git Crash Courses</th></tr>
  71         <tr><td align="center">
  72         <a href="course/cvs.html">Git for CVS users</a>
  73         <!--
  74         <br /><a href="course/svn.html">Git for SVN users</a>
  75         <br /><a href="course/new.html">New to revision control?</a>
  76         -->
  77         <br /><a href="course/stgit.html">Maintaining external patches</a>
  78         <br /><em>More to come soon...</em>
  79         </tr></td>
  80 </table></div>
  81
  82 <ul>
  83         <li><a href="#about">About Git</a></li>
  84         <li><a href="#documentation">Git Documentation</a></li>
  85         <li><a href="#download">Getting Git</a></li>
  86         <li><a href="#tools">Related Tools</a></li>
  87         <li><a href="#community">Community and Development</a></li>
  88 </ul>
  89
  90
  91 <hr />
  92
  93 <h2 id="about">About Git</h2>
  94
  95 <p>Git is distributed version control system focused on
  96 speed, effectivity and real-world usability on large projects.
  97 Its highlights include:</p>
  98
  99 <!-- Heavily inspired by Wikipedia -->
 100
 101 <ul>
 102
 103 <li>
 104 <b>Strong support for non-linear development.</b>
 105 Git supports rapid and convenient branching and merging,
 106 and includes powerful tools for visualizing
 107 and navigating a non-linear development history.
 108 </li>
 109
 110 <li>
 111 <b>Distributed development.</b>
 112 Like BitKeeper and SVK, Git gives each developer
 113 a local copy of the entire development history,
 114 and changes are copied from one such repository to another.
 115 These changes are imported as additional development branches,
 116 and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch.
 117 Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol
 118 (optionally wrapped in ssh) or simply using HTTP - you can publish
 119 your repository anywhere without <em>any</em> special webserver
 120 configuration required.
 121 </li>
 122
 123 <li>
 124 <b>Efficient handling of large projects.</b>
 125 Git is very fast and scales well
 126 even when working with large projects and long histories.
 127 It is commonly an order of magnitude faster
 128 than most other revision control systems,
 129 and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations.
 130 It also uses an extremely efficient packed format
 131 for long-term revision storage
 132 that currently tops any other open source version control system.
 133 </li>
 134
 135 <li>
 136 <b>Cryptographic authentication of history.</b>
 137 The Git history is stored in such a way
 138 that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms)
 139 depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit.
 140 Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions
 141 without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.
 142 </li>
 143
 144 <li>
 145 <b>Toolkit design.</b>
 146 Following the Unix tradition,
 147 Git is a collection of many small tools written in C,
 148 and a number of scripts that provide convenient wrappers.
 149 It is easy to chain the components together to do other clever things.
 150 </li>
 151
 152 </ul>
 153
 154 <p>Besides providing a version control system,
 155 the Git project provides a generic low-level toolkit
 156 for tree history storage and directory content management.
 157 Traditionally, the toolkit is called the <em>plumbing</em>.
 158 Several other projects (so-called <em>porcelains</em>)
 159 offer compatible version control interfaces - see the
 160 <a href="#tools">related tools</a> list.</p>
 161
 162 <p>Some other projects have taken the concepts from the Git project
 163 and are either porting an existing toolset to use the Git tools,
 164 or reimplementing the concepts internally,
 165 to benefit from the performance improvements.
 166 This includes e.g.
 167 <a href="http://darcs.net/DarcsWiki/DarcsGit">Darcs-git</a>.</li>
 168
 169
 170 <hr />
 171
 172 <h2 id="documentation">Git Documentation</h2>
 173
 174 <p>You can find all the documentation bundled with the Git source code
 175 in the <code>Documentation/</code> subdirectory. In addition, you can
 176 also <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/">read the web version</a>
 177 (corresponding to the latest Git development version).</p>
 178
 179 <p>For a quick start, the
 180 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html">tutorial</a>
 181 covers the basics. See the
 182 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/everyday.html">Everyday Git</a>
 183 handbook for a useful minimum set of commands
 184 depending on your style of Git usage.
 185 Additionally, the
 186 <a href="http://linux.yyz.us/git-howto.html">Kernel Hacker's Git Tutorial</a>
 187 by Jeff Garzik may be useful.</p>
 188
 189 <p>For a large and continuously growing resource of information
 190 about Git, you can refer to the <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Git Wiki</a>
 191 - you are welcome to contribute!</p>
 192
 193
 194 <hr />
 195
 196 <h2 id="download">Getting Git</h2>
 197
 198 <p>The general download location for Git releases is
 199 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/</a>.
 200 You can also use one of many <a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">kernel.org mirrors</a>.</p>
 201
 202 <h3>Binaries</h3>
 203
 204 <p>For people who prefer precompiled packages, these are available:</p>
 205
 206 <table class="bugmail">
 207
 208 <tr>
 209 <td colspan="2">RPMs</td>
 210 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/">http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/</a></td>
 211 </tr>
 212
 213 <tr class="odd">
 214 <td rowspan="3">Debs</td>
 215 <td>Stable</td>
 216 <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>
 217 </tr>
 218 <tr>
 219 <td>Testing</td>
 220 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core</a></td>
 221 </tr>
 222 <tr class="odd">
 223 <td>Unstable</td>
 224 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core</a></td>
 225 </tr>
 226 </td>
 227
 228 </table>
 229
 230 <h3>Development snapshots</h3>
 231
 232 <p>Daily snapshots of the main Git development branch are available at
 233 <a href="http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/"
 234 >http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/</a>
 235 (thanks to Dave Jones).</p>
 236
 237 <h3>Git over git</h3>
 238
 239 <p>If you already have Git installed, you can get the latest
 240 development version via Git itself:
 241 <pre>git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 242 </p>
 243
 244 <p>If you have problems connecting (Git uses port 9418),
 245 you can try to access the repository over the HTTP protocol:
 246 <pre>git clone http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 247 (this method is considerably slower but works even behind
 248 firewalls and such).
 249 </p>
 250
 251 <p>You can also always browse the current contents
 252 of the git repository on web using the kernel.org
 253 <a href="http://kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">gitweb interface</a>.</p>
 254
 255
 256 <hr />
 257
 258 <h2 id="tools">Related Tools</h2>
 259
 260 <p>Git is a true UNIX tool in the sense that it consists of many commands
 261 that do one thing well. It has been designed from the start to be easily
 262 wrapped in other tools and frontends. Currently, there are several
 263 interfaces offering more comfortable Git usage, and also graphical
 264 interfaces for browsing the history and more.</p>
 265
 266 <p>Traditionally, the low-level part of Git is called <em>plumbing</em>
 267 and the interfaces and frontends are called <em>porcelains</em>.
 268 Git itself comes with a default porcelain bundled and that is actually
 269 what you will normally mean when you say you use Git. However, there
 270 are several alternative porcelains which might offer considerably more
 271 user friendly interface or extend Git to perform some specialied tasks.</p>
 272
 273 <h3>Version Control Interface layers</h3>
 274
 275 <dl>
 276
 277 <dt id="cogito">Cogito</dt>
 278 <dd>
 279 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/cogito/">Cogito</a>
 280 is the most popular version control system on top of Git.
 281 It aims at seamless user interface and ease of use, providing
 282 generally smoother user experience than the "raw" Git interface
 283 and indeed also many other version control systems.</dd>
 284
 285 <dt id="stgit">StGIT</dt>
 286 <dd><a href="http://www.procode.org/stgit/">Stacked Git</a> provides
 287 a <em>Quilt</em>-like patch management functionality in the Git environment.
 288 You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get
 289 merged upstream.</dd>
 290
 291 <dt id="pg">Patchy Git (pg)</dt>
 292 <dd><a href="http://www.spearce.org/category/projects/scm/pg/">Patchy Git</a>
 293 aims to help the user manage a set of patches on top of the current branch.
 294 pg is somewhat like Quilt or StGIT,
 295 but it does have a slightly different feature set.</dd>
 296
 297 <dt id="hgct">(h)gct</dt>
 298 <dd><a href="http://www.cyd.liu.se/~freku045/gct/">(h)gct</a> is
 299 a GUI enabled commit tool. It has support for both Git and Mercurial.</dd>
 300
 301 </dl>
 302
 303 <h3>History Visualization</h3>
 304
 305 <dl>
 306
 307 <dt id="qgit">qgit</dt>
 308 <dd><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit">qgit</a> is a QT
 309 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories, similar to <em>gitk</em>
 310 (a simple GUI in TCL/TK distributed with stock Git)
 311 but with more features.</dd>
 312
 313 <dt id="gitweb">gitweb</dt>
 314 <dd><a href="ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/gitweb/">gitweb</a>
 315 provides full-fledged <a href="http://www.kernel.org/git/">web interface</a>
 316 for Git repositories.</dd>
 317
 318 </dl>
 319
 320
 321 <hr />
 322
 323 <h2 id="community">Community and Development</h2>
 324
 325 <p>Git was initially written by Linus Torvalds
 326 with help of a group of hackers 'round the net.
 327 It is currently maintained by
 328 Junio C Hamano.</p>
 329
 330 <p>The user discussion and development of Git, Cogito and other tools related to Git
 331 takes place on the Git mailing list - everyone is welcome to post to
 332 <a href="mailto:git@vger.kernel.org">git@vger.kernel.org</a>.
 333 To <a href="mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org?body=subscribe%20git">subscribe</a>
 334 to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to
 335 majordomo@vger.kernel.org.
 336 The mailing list archives are available at
 337 <a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git">http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git</a>.</p>
 338
 339 <p>You can also visit the IRC channel dedicated to Git -
 340 meet us at <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#git">#git at FreeNode</a>.</p>
 341
 342 <p>This website itself is tracked in Git as well -
 343 you can
 344 <a href="http://pasky.or.cz/gitweb.cgi?p=git-homepage.git;a=summary">browse its development history</a>
 345 or even clone it from http://pasky.or.cz/~xpasky/git-homepage.git.
 346 The site is covered by GPLv2
 347 and maintained by <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">Petr Baudis</a>
 348 who always takes patches eagerly. ;-)
 349 The web is based on a design by <a href="mailto:fonseca@diku.dk">Jonas Fonseca</a>
 350 for the <a href="http://elinks.cz">ELinks homepage</a>.</p>
 351
 352
 353 <hr />
 354
 355 <div class="footer">
 356         <span class="menu">
 357                 This page is maintained by Petr Baudis. Please email me
 358                 at <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">pasky@suse.cz</a>
 359                 with patches, suggestions and comments.
 360         </span>
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