Git/Installing

How to install git.

Installation

To install Git from source, go to http://git-scm.com/download and downloading the appropriate tarball.

Configure is straightforward to run:

#!/bin/sh

./configure --prefix=${HOME}/pkg/git/1.x.y

or whatever version you downloaded.

Run this, then run

make

make install

and you should be good to go. Don't forget to add git to your $PATH first, though.

Configuring

What files?

The file /etc/gitconfig sets the system-wide git configuration (lowest precedence).

The file ~/.gitconfig sets the user-wide git configuration (middle precedence).

The file .git/config sets the project-specific configuration (highest precedence).

First things first

Set your name and email:

$ git config --global user.name "First Last"
$ git config --global user.email me@email.com

Also set your default editor:

$ git config --global core.editor vim

The --global flag sets this for your system-wide (specific to you as a user, anyway) git profile. If you leave off the global flag, it sets it for a specific project only.

You can check your config settings by running git config --list:

$ git config --list
user.name=First Last
user.email=me@email.com
[...]