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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/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>
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  34 </td></tr></table>
  35
  36 <h1>Git - Fast Version Control System</h1>
  37
  38 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  39         <tr align="center"><td>[2007-03-28]</td></tr>
  40         <tr align="center"><td>The latest stable<br />Git release is <b>v1.5.0.6</b>:</td></tr>
  41         <tr align="center"><td>
  42                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.0.6.tar.bz2">tar.bz2</a>
  43                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.0.6.tar.bz2.sign">(sign)</a><br />
  44                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.0.6.tar.gz">tar.gz</a>
  45                 <a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.0.6.tar.gz.sign">(sign)</a><br />
  46         </td></tr>
  47         <tr class="odd" align="center">
  48                 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">More versions</a></td>
  49         </tr>
  50 </table></div>
  51
  52 <p>Git is popular version control system
  53 designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency;
  54 it is used mainly for various open source projects,
  55 most notably the Linux kernel.</p>
  56
  57 <p>Git falls in the category of distributed source code management tools,
  58 similar to e.g. GNU Arch or Monotone (or BitKeeper in the proprietary world).
  59 Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with full revision
  60 tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server.</p>
  61
  62 <p>Git is an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</a> project covered by
  63 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt">GNU General Public License</a>.
  64 It was originally written by Linus Torvalds and is currently maintained by
  65 Junio C Hamano.</p>
  66
  67
  68 <hr />
  69
  70 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  71         <tr><th><a href="course/index.html">Git Crash Courses</a></th></tr>
  72         <tr><td align="center">
  73         <a href="course/cvs.html">Git for CVS users</a>
  74         <br /><a href="course/svn.html">Git for SVN users</a>
  75         <!--
  76         <br /><a href="course/new.html">New to revision control?</a>
  77         -->
  78         <br /><a href="course/stgit.html">Maintaining external patches</a>
  79         <br /><em>More to come soon...</em>
  80         </tr></td>
  81 </table></div>
  82
  83 <ul>
  84         <li><a href="#about">About Git</a></li>
  85         <li><a href="#documentation">Git Documentation</a></li>
  86         <li><a href="#download">Getting Git</a></li>
  87         <li><a href="#tools">Related Tools</a></li>
  88         <li><a href="#community">Community and Development</a></li>
  89 </ul>
  90
  91
  92 <hr />
  93
  94 <h2 id="about">About Git</h2>
  95
  96 <p>Git is distributed version control system focused on
  97 speed, effectivity and real-world usability on large projects.
  98 Its highlights include:</p>
  99
 100 <!-- Heavily inspired by Wikipedia -->
 101
 102 <ul>
 103
 104 <li>
 105 <b>Strong support for non-linear development.</b>
 106 Git supports rapid and convenient branching and merging,
 107 and includes powerful tools for visualizing
 108 and navigating a non-linear development history.
 109 </li>
 110
 111 <li>
 112 <b>Distributed development.</b>
 113 Like BitKeeper and SVK, Git gives each developer
 114 a local copy of the entire development history,
 115 and changes are copied from one such repository to another.
 116 These changes are imported as additional development branches,
 117 and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch.
 118 Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol
 119 (optionally wrapped in ssh) or simply using HTTP - you can publish
 120 your repository anywhere without <em>any</em> special webserver
 121 configuration required.
 122 </li>
 123
 124 <li>
 125 <b>Efficient handling of large projects.</b>
 126 Git is very fast and scales well
 127 even when working with large projects and long histories.
 128 It is commonly an order of magnitude faster
 129 than most other revision control systems,
 130 and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations.
 131 It also uses an extremely efficient packed format
 132 for long-term revision storage
 133 that currently tops any other open source version control system.
 134 </li>
 135
 136 <li>
 137 <b>Cryptographic authentication of history.</b>
 138 The Git history is stored in such a way
 139 that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms)
 140 depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit.
 141 Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions
 142 without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.
 143 </li>
 144
 145 <li>
 146 <b>Toolkit design.</b>
 147 Following the Unix tradition,
 148 Git is a collection of many small tools written in C,
 149 and a number of scripts that provide convenient wrappers.
 150 It is easy to chain the components together to do other clever things.
 151 </li>
 152
 153 </ul>
 154
 155 <p>Besides providing a version control system,
 156 the Git project provides a generic low-level toolkit
 157 for tree history storage and directory content management.
 158 Traditionally, the toolkit is called the <em>plumbing</em>.
 159 Several other projects (so-called <em>porcelains</em>)
 160 offer compatible version control interfaces - see the
 161 <a href="#tools">related tools</a> list.</p>
 162
 163 <p>Some other projects have taken the concepts from the Git project
 164 and are either porting an existing toolset to use the Git tools,
 165 or reimplementing the concepts internally,
 166 to benefit from the performance improvements.
 167 This includes e.g.
 168 <a href="http://darcs.net/DarcsWiki/DarcsGit">Darcs-git</a>.</li>
 169
 170
 171 <hr />
 172
 173 <h2 id="documentation">Git Documentation</h2>
 174
 175 <p>You can find all the documentation bundled with the Git source code
 176 in the <code>Documentation/</code> subdirectory. In addition, you can
 177 also <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/">read the web version</a>
 178 (corresponding to the latest Git development version).</p>
 179
 180 <p>For a quick start, the
 181 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html">tutorial</a>
 182 covers the basics. See the
 183 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/everyday.html">Everyday Git</a>
 184 handbook for a useful minimum set of commands
 185 depending on your style of Git usage.
 186 Additionally, the
 187 <a href="http://linux.yyz.us/git-howto.html">Kernel Hacker's Git Tutorial</a>
 188 by Jeff Garzik may be useful.</p>
 189
 190 <p>For a large and continuously growing resource of information
 191 about Git, you can refer to the <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Git Wiki</a>
 192 - you are welcome to contribute!</p>
 193
 194
 195 <hr />
 196
 197 <h2 id="download">Getting Git</h2>
 198
 199 <p>The general download location for Git releases is
 200 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/</a>.
 201 You can also use one of many <a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">kernel.org mirrors</a>.</p>
 202
 203 <h3>Binaries</h3>
 204
 205 <p>For people who prefer precompiled packages, these are available:</p>
 206
 207 <table class="bugmail">
 208
 209 <tr>
 210 <td colspan="2">RPMs</td>
 211 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/">http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/</a></td>
 212 </tr>
 213
 214 <tr class="odd">
 215 <td rowspan="3">Debs</td>
 216 <td>Stable</td>
 217 <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>
 218 </tr>
 219 <tr>
 220 <td>Testing</td>
 221 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core</a></td>
 222 </tr>
 223 <tr class="odd">
 224 <td>Unstable</td>
 225 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core</a></td>
 226 </tr>
 227 </td>
 228
 229 </table>
 230
 231 <h3>Development snapshots</h3>
 232
 233 <p>Daily snapshots of the main Git development branch are available at
 234 <a href="http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/"
 235 >http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/</a>
 236 (thanks to Dave Jones).</p>
 237
 238 <h3>Git by git</h3>
 239
 240 <p>If you already have Git installed, you can get the latest
 241 development version via Git itself:
 242 <pre>git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 243 </p>
 244
 245 <p>If you have problems connecting (Git uses port 9418),
 246 you can try to access the repository over the HTTP protocol:
 247 <pre>git clone http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 248 (this method is considerably slower but works even behind
 249 firewalls and such).
 250 </p>
 251
 252 <p>You can also always browse the current contents
 253 of the git repository on web using the kernel.org
 254 <a href="http://kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">gitweb interface</a>.</p>
 255
 256
 257 <hr />
 258
 259 <h2 id="tools">Related Tools</h2>
 260
 261 <p>Git is a true UNIX tool in the sense that it consists of many commands
 262 that do one thing well. It has been designed from the start to be easily
 263 wrapped in other tools and frontends. Currently, there are several
 264 interfaces offering more comfortable Git usage, and also graphical
 265 interfaces for browsing the history and more.</p>
 266
 267 <p>Traditionally, the low-level part of Git is called <em>plumbing</em>
 268 and the interfaces and frontends are called <em>porcelains</em>.
 269 Git itself comes with a default porcelain bundled and that is actually
 270 what you will normally mean when you say you use Git. However, there
 271 are several alternative porcelains which might offer considerably more
 272 user friendly interface or extend Git to perform some specialied tasks.</p>
 273
 274 <p>There is a <strong>public Git hosting</strong> available for your
 275 pet project, either mirroring your project or letting you push, and providing
 276 a gitweb interface, at <a href="http://repo.or.cz/">http://repo.or.cz/</a>.</p>
 277
 278 <h3>Version Control Interface layers</h3>
 279
 280 <dl>
 281
 282 <dt id="cogito">Cogito</dt>
 283 <dd>
 284 <a href="http://git.or.cz/cogito/">Cogito</a>
 285 is the most popular version control system on top of Git.
 286 It aims at seamless user interface and ease of use, providing
 287 generally smoother user experience than the "raw" Git interface
 288 and indeed also many other version control systems.</dd>
 289
 290 <dt id="stgit">StGIT</dt>
 291 <dd><a href="http://www.procode.org/stgit/">Stacked Git</a> provides
 292 a <em>Quilt</em>-like patch management functionality in the Git environment.
 293 You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get
 294 merged upstream.</dd>
 295
 296 <dt id="git-gui">Git-gui</dt>
 297 <dd><a href="http://www.spearce.org/2007/01/git-gui-screenshots.html">git-gui</a>
 298 is a simple Tk based graphical interface for common Git
 299 operations. Git-gui is shipped with Git.
 300 </dd>
 301
 302 </dl>
 303
 304 <h3>History Visualization</h3>
 305
 306 <dl>
 307
 308 <dt id="qgit">qgit</dt>
 309 <dd><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit">qgit</a> is a QT
 310 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories, similar to <em>gitk</em>
 311 (a simple GUI in TCL/TK distributed with stock Git)
 312 but with more features.</dd>
 313
 314 <dt id="gitweb">gitweb</dt>
 315 <dd>gitweb provides full-fledged <a href="http://www.kernel.org/git/">web interface</a>
 316 for Git repositories. (gitweb is now part of the core Git distribution. Installation
 317 is straightforward - take the <tt>gitweb/</tt> directory and make it accessible on the
 318 web at a place with CGIs enabled. Then just tweak the configuration at the top of the
 319 <tt>gitweb/gitweb.cgi</tt> script.)</dd>
 320
 321 </dl>
 322
 323
 324 <hr />
 325
 326 <h2 id="community">Community and Development</h2>
 327
 328 <p>Git was initially written by Linus Torvalds
 329 with help of a group of hackers 'round the net.
 330 It is currently maintained by
 331 Junio C Hamano.</p>
 332
 333 <p>The user discussion and development of Git, Cogito and other tools related to Git
 334 takes place on the Git mailing list - everyone is welcome to post
 335 bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to
 336 <a href="mailto:git@vger.kernel.org">git@vger.kernel.org</a>.
 337 To <a href="mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org?body=subscribe%20git">subscribe</a>
 338 to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to
 339 majordomo@vger.kernel.org.
 340 The mailing list archives are available at
 341 <a href="http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git">http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=git</a>.</p>
 342
 343 <p>You can also visit the IRC channel dedicated to Git -
 344 meet us at <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#git">#git at FreeNode</a>.</p>
 345
 346 <p>If you are a student, you might be interested in applying
 347 for a Google Summer of Code 2007 slot.  Take a look at our
 348 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/SoC2007Ideas">ideas page</a> for
 349 more details.</p>
 350
 351 <p>This website itself is tracked in Git as well -
 352 you can
 353 <a href="http://pasky.or.cz/gitweb.cgi?p=git-homepage.git;a=summary">browse its development history</a>
 354 or even clone it from http://pasky.or.cz/~xpasky/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
 364 <div class="footer">
 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>
 370 </div>
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