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   6         <title>Git - Fast Version Control System</title>
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  24 <table border="1" summary="Navigation links" class="header" width="100%"><tr><td>
  25         <a href="index.html" id="top"><img src="git-logo.png" width="72" height="27" alt="Git"
  26                 style="border-width:0px;"/></a>
  27         <span class="hide">:</span>
  28         <span class="menu">
  29                 <a href="index.html">Home</a> |
  30                 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/">Documentation</a> |
  31                 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitFaq">FAQ</a> |
  32                 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Wiki</a> |
  33                 <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">Download Site</a> |
  34                 <a href="http://git.kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">Git's Gitweb</a>
  35         </span>
  36 </td></tr></table>
  37
  38 <h1>Git&ensp;&ndash;&ensp;Fast Version Control System</h1>
  39
  40 <p>Git is an open source version control system
  41 designed to handle very large projects with speed and efficiency,
  42 but just as well suited for small personal repositories;
  43 it is especially popular in the open source community,
  44 serving as a development platform for projects like
  45 the <em>Linux Kernel</em>, <em>Ruby on Rails</em>, <em>WINE</em> or <em>X.org</em>.</p>
  46
  47 <p>Git falls in the category of distributed source code management tools,
  48 similar to e.g. <em>Mercurial</em> or <em>Bazaar</em>.
  49 Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with complete history
  50 and full revision tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access
  51 or a central server. Still, Git stays extremely fast and space efficient.</p>
  52
  53 <p>Git is an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/">Open Source</a> project covered by
  54 the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl2.txt">GNU General Public License v2</a>.
  55 It was originally written by Linus Torvalds and is currently maintained by
  56 Junio C Hamano.</p>
  57
  58
  59
  60
  61 <div style="float: right"><table class="releases">
  62         <tr class="odd" align="center"><td colspan="3"><b>Download GIT source package</b> <!--@DATE@-->[2009-05-13]</td></tr>
  63         <tr align="center"><td colspan="3">The latest stable Git release is <b><!--@VNUM@-->v1.6.3.1</b>:</td></tr>
  64         <tr align="center"><td colspan="3">
  65                 <table><tr><td>
  66                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.3.1.tar.bz2">tar.bz2</a>
  67                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.3.1.tar.bz2.sign">(sign)</a>
  68                 </td><td>
  69                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.3.1.tar.gz">tar.gz</a>
  70                 <!--@TARLINK@--><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.6.3.1.tar.gz.sign">(sign)</a>
  71                 </td></tr></table>
  72         </td></tr>
  73         <tr class="odd" align="center">
  74                 <td><!--@NOTESLINK@--><a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/RelNotes-1.6.3.1.txt">Release notes</a></td>
  75                 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">More versions</a></td>
  76                 <td><a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git/">Browse history/code</a></td>
  77         </tr>
  78 </table></div>
  79
  80
  81 <hr />
  82
  83 <ul class="toc">
  84         <li><a href="#about">About Git</a></li>
  85         <li><a href="#documentation">Documentation</a></li>
  86         <li><a href="#download">Download</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 <div style="float: right">
  97 <table class="releases">
  98         <tr><th><a href="course/index.html">Git Crash Courses</a></th></tr>
  99         <tr><td align="center">
 100         <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gittutorial.html">Git for everyone</a>
 101         <!--
 102         <br /><a href="course/new.html">New to revision control?</a>
 103         -->
 104         <br /><a href="course/stgit.html">Maintaining external patches</a>
 105         <br /><a href="course/svn.html">Git for SVN users</a>
 106         <!-- <br /><em>More to come soon...</em> -->
 107         </td></tr>
 108 </table>
 109 </div>
 110
 111 <p>Git is distributed version control system focused on
 112 speed, effectivity and real-world usability on large projects.
 113 Its highlights include:</p>
 114
 115 <!-- Heavily inspired by Wikipedia -->
 116
 117 <ul>
 118
 119 <li>
 120 <b>Distributed development.</b>
 121 Like most other modern version control systems, Git gives each developer
 122 a local copy of the entire development history,
 123 and changes are copied from one such repository to another.
 124 These changes are imported as additional development branches,
 125 and can be merged in the same way as a locally developed branch.
 126 Repositories can be easily accessed via the efficient Git protocol
 127 (optionally wrapped in ssh for authentication and security)
 128 or simply using HTTP - you can publish your repository anywhere
 129 without <em>any</em> special webserver configuration required.
 130 </li>
 131
 132 <li>
 133 <b>Strong support for non-linear development.</b>
 134 Git supports rapid and convenient branching and merging,
 135 and includes powerful tools for visualizing
 136 and navigating a non-linear development history.
 137 </li>
 138
 139 <li>
 140 <b>Efficient handling of large projects.</b>
 141 Git is very fast and scales well
 142 even when working with large projects and long histories.
 143 It is commonly an order of magnitude faster
 144 than most other version control systems,
 145 and several orders of magnitude faster on some operations.
 146 It also uses an extremely efficient packed format
 147 for long-term revision storage
 148 that currently tops any other open source version control system.
 149 </li>
 150
 151 <li>
 152 <b>Cryptographic authentication of history.</b>
 153 The Git history is stored in such a way
 154 that the name of a particular revision (a "commit" in Git terms)
 155 depends upon the complete development history leading up to that commit.
 156 Once it is published, it is not possible to change the old versions
 157 without it being noticed. Also, tags can be cryptographically signed.
 158 </li>
 159
 160 <li>
 161 <b>Toolkit design.</b>
 162 Following the Unix tradition,
 163 Git is a collection of many small tools written in C,
 164 and a number of scripts that provide convenient wrappers.
 165 Git provides tools for both convenient human usage and easy
 166 scripting to perform new clever operations.
 167 </li>
 168
 169 </ul>
 170
 171 <p>Besides providing a version control system,
 172 the Git project provides a generic low-level toolkit
 173 for tree history storage and directory content management.
 174 Traditionally, the toolkit is called the <em>plumbing</em>.
 175 Aside the user interface coming with Git itself,
 176 several other projects (so-called <em>porcelains</em>)
 177 offer compatible version control interfaces - see the
 178 <a href="#tools">related tools</a> list.</p>
 179
 180
 181 <hr />
 182
 183 <h2 id="documentation">Documentation</h2>
 184
 185 <p>You can find all the documentation bundled with the Git source code
 186 in the <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/"><code>Documentation/</code></a> subdirectory
 187 (the web version corresponds to the latest Git development version).</p>
 188
 189 <p>See <a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/gittutorial.html">the tutorial</a> to get started,
 190 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.
 191 Especially users migrating from other systems might appreciate the <a href="course/">Crash Courses</a>.
 192 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.
 193 You can find links to more useful documentation at the
 194 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitDocumentation">GitDocumentation</a> wiki page.</p>
 195
 196 <p>For a large and continuously growing resource of information
 197 about Git, you can refer to the <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki">Git Wiki</a>
 198 - you are welcome to contribute!</p>
 199
 200
 201 <hr />
 202
 203 <h2 id="download">Download</h2>
 204
 205 <p>The general download location for Git releases is
 206 <strong><a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/">http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/</a></strong>.
 207 You can also use one of many <a href="http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/">kernel.org mirrors</a>.</p>
 208
 209 <h3>Git by Git</h3>
 210
 211 <p>If you already have Git installed, you can get the latest
 212 development version via Git itself:</p>
 213 <pre>git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 214
 215 <p>If you have problems connecting (Git uses port 9418),
 216 you can try to access the repository over the HTTP protocol:</p>
 217 <pre>git clone http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git</pre>
 218 <p>(this method is considerably slower but works even behind
 219 firewalls and such).</p>
 220
 221 <p>You can also always browse the current contents
 222 of the git repository on web using the kernel.org
 223 <a href="http://kernel.org/git/?p=git/git.git;a=summary">gitweb interface</a>.</p>
 224
 225 <h3>Binaries</h3>
 226
 227 <p>For people who prefer precompiled packages, these are available:</p>
 228
 229 <table class="bugmail">
 230
 231 <tr>
 232 <td colspan="2">RPMs</td>
 233 <td><a href="http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/">http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/RPMS/</a></td>
 234 </tr>
 235
 236 <tr class="odd">
 237 <td rowspan="3">Debs</td>
 238 <td>Stable</td>
 239 <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>
 240 </tr>
 241 <tr>
 242 <td>Testing</td>
 243 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/git-core</a></td>
 244 </tr>
 245 <tr class="odd">
 246 <td>Unstable</td>
 247 <td><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/git-core</a></td>
 248 </tr>
 249
 250 <tr>
 251 <td rowspan="2">Win</td>
 252 <td><a href="http://www.cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a></td>
 253 <td><a href="http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe">http://www.cygwin.com/setup.exe</a></td>
 254 </tr>
 255 <tr class="odd">
 256 <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/">msysGit</a></td>
 257 <td><a href="http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list">http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list</a></td>
 258 </tr>
 259
 260 <tr class="odd">
 261 <td rowspan="2">OS X</td>
 262 </tr>
 263 <tr>
 264 <td>Stable</td>
 265 <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>
 266 </tr>
 267
 268 <tr>
 269 <td rowspan="3">Solaris</td>
 270 </tr>
 271 <tr class="odd">
 272 <td>v8&ndash;10</td>
 273 <td><a href="http://sunfreeware.com/">http://sunfreeware.com/</a></td>
 274 </tr>
 275
 276 </table>
 277
 278 <h3>Development snapshots</h3>
 279
 280 <p>Daily snapshots of the main Git development branch are available at
 281 <a href="http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/"
 282 >http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/git/</a>
 283 (thanks to Dave Jones).</p>
 284
 285
 286
 287 <hr />
 288
 289 <h2 id="tools">Related Tools</h2>
 290
 291 <p>Git is a true UNIX tool in the sense that it consists of many commands
 292 that do one thing well. It has been designed from the start to be easily
 293 wrapped in other tools and frontends. Currently, there are several
 294 interfaces offering more comfortable Git usage, and also graphical
 295 interfaces for browsing the history and more.</p>
 296
 297 <p>Traditionally, the low-level part of Git is called <em>plumbing</em>
 298 and the interfaces and frontends are called <em>porcelains</em>.
 299 Git itself comes with a default porcelain bundled and that is actually
 300 what you will normally mean when you say you use Git. However, there
 301 are several alternative porcelains which might offer considerably more
 302 user friendly interface or extend Git to perform some specialized tasks.</p>
 303
 304 <p>Below, the most widely used tools are listed. Please refer to
 305 <a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/InterfacesFrontendsAndTools">the corresponding wiki page</a>
 306 for a full list.</p>
 307
 308 <table>
 309 <tr valign="top">
 310
 311 <td>
 312 <h3>User Interface Tools</h3>
 313
 314 <dl>
 315
 316 <dt id="qgit">qgit</dt>
 317 <dd><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgit">qgit</a> is a QT
 318 GUI for browsing history of Git repositories, similar to <em>gitk</em>
 319 but with more features.</dd>
 320
 321 <dt id="tig">Tig</dt>
 322 <dd><a href="http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/">tig</a>
 323 is a text-mode interface for Git. It acts as a repository browser
 324 that can also act as a pager for various Git commands
 325 and manage your index (on diff chunk level).</dd>
 326
 327 </dl>
 328 </td>
 329
 330 <td>
 331 <h3>Tools Shipped with Git</h3>
 332
 333 <dl>
 334
 335 <dt id="gitk">gitk</dt>
 336 <dd><a href="http://git.kernel.org/?p=gitk/gitk.git;a=summary">gitk</a>
 337 is the original TCL/TK GUI for browsing history of Git repositories.</dd>
 338
 339 <dt id="git-gui">Git-gui</dt>
 340 <dd><a href="http://www.spearce.org/category/projects/scm/git-gui/">git-gui</a>
 341 is a simple Tk based graphical interface for common Git
 342 operations.</dd>
 343
 344 <dt id="gitweb">gitweb</dt>
 345 <dd>gitweb provides a full-fledged <a href="http://git.kernel.org/">web interface</a>
 346 for Git repositories.</dd>
 347
 348 </dl>
 349 </td>
 350 </tr>
 351
 352 <tr valign="top">
 353 <td>
 354 <h3>Version Control Interface layers</h3>
 355
 356 <dl>
 357
 358 <dt id="stgit">StGIT</dt>
 359 <dd><a href="http://www.procode.org/stgit/">Stacked Git</a> provides
 360 a <em>Quilt</em>-like patch management functionality in the Git environment.
 361 You can easily manage your patches in the scope of Git until they get
 362 merged upstream.</dd>
 363
 364 <dt id="guilt">Guilt</dt>
 365 <dd><a href="http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/jsipek/guilt/">Guilt</a>
 366 is another patch management tool, closer to the spirit of <em>Quilt</em>
 367 than StGIT.</dd>
 368
 369 <dt id="cogito">Cogito</dt>
 370 <dd><a href="http://git.or.cz/cogito/">Cogito</a>
 371 was a popular version control system on top of Git,
 372 aiming at seamless user interface and ease of use.
 373 It provided much better user interface in the past
 374 but later improvements of Git made it mostly obsolete
 375 and it is not maintained anymore.
 376 Please migrate to Git itself.</dd>
 377
 378 </dl>
 379 </td>
 380
 381 <td>
 382 <h3>Public Hosting</h3>
 383
 384 <p>Several public Git hosting sites are available and open for anyone
 385 to host their pet projects:</p>
 386
 387 <dl>
 388 <dt id="repo">repo.or.cz</dt>
 389 <dd><a href="http://repo.or.cz/">repo.or.cz</a> is the oldest hosting site,
 390 accomodating many hundreds of projects, with open-sourced infrastructure
 391 and aimed at open source software. It provides full push features as well
 392 as simple mirroring mode and gitweb interface with various enhancements.</dd>
 393
 394 <dt id="github">GitHub</dt>
 395 <dd><a href="http://github.com/">GitHub</a> provides both free hosting for
 396 smaller projects and paid options for private hosting and large-sized projects.
 397 It uses a custom web interface including a wiki hosting and puts emphasis
 398 on social networking of project developers.</dd>
 399
 400 <dt id="gitorious">Gitorious</dt>
 401 <dd><a href="http://gitorious.org/">Gitorious</a> is another free hosting
 402 site with a custom web interface, supporting multiple repositories per project,
 403 local installations and with open source code.</dd>
 404
 405 </dl>
 406
 407 <p style="text-align: right; font-size: small"><a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitHosting">more sites</a></p>
 408 </td>
 409 </tr>
 410
 411 </table>
 412
 413
 414 <hr />
 415
 416 <h2 id="community">Community and Development</h2>
 417
 418 <p>Git was initially written by Linus Torvalds
 419 with help of a group of hackers 'round the net.
 420 It is currently maintained by
 421 Junio C Hamano.</p>
 422
 423 <p>The user discussion and development of Git and most tools related to Git
 424 takes place on the Git mailing list - everyone is welcome to post
 425 bug reports, feature requests, comments and
 426 <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git?a=blob_plain;f=Documentation/SubmittingPatches;hb=HEAD">patches</a>
 427 to <a href="mailto:git@vger.kernel.org">git@vger.kernel.org</a>.
 428 To <a href="mailto:majordomo@vger.kernel.org?body=subscribe%20git">subscribe</a>
 429 to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to
 430 majordomo@vger.kernel.org.
 431 The mailing list archives are available at
 432 <a href="http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git">Gmane</a>
 433 and <a href="http://marc.info/?l=git">MARC</a>.
 434 <a href="http://gitrss.q42.co.uk/">RSS feeds of various news</a>
 435 are also available.</p>
 436
 437 <p>You can also visit the IRC channel dedicated to Git -
 438 meet us at <a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/#git">#git on FreeNode</a>.</p>
 439
 440 <p>This website itself is tracked in Git as well -
 441 you can
 442 <a href="http://repo.or.cz/w/git-homepage.git">browse its development history</a>
 443 or even clone it from http://repo.or.cz/r/git-homepage.git.
 444 The site is covered by GPLv2
 445 and maintained by <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">Petr Baudis</a>
 446 who always takes patches eagerly. ;-)
 447 The web is based on a design by <a href="mailto:fonseca@diku.dk">Jonas Fonseca</a>
 448 for the <a href="http://elinks.cz">ELinks homepage</a>.</p>
 449
 450
 451 <hr />
 452
 453 <div class="footer">
 454         <span class="menu">
 455                 This page is maintained by Petr Baudis. Please email me
 456                 at <a href="mailto:pasky@suse.cz">pasky@suse.cz</a>
 457                 with patches, suggestions and comments.
 458         </span>
 459 </div>
 460
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