Tag Archives: mac

Installing Git

24 Jan

It’s pretty easy to get Git installed.

1.) Install Based on Your Operating System

Linux

You may already have git installed. If not, use your package manager:

$ yum install git-core

or

$ apt-get install git-core

Mac

For 10.5 or later, download and install the appropriate installer from http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/

Windows

Download and install the latest installer from http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/

Note to Windows Users

There are several nice GUIs for Git on Windows. It is fine to use these, but I would highly recommend learning the basics of Git using the command line. Because:

  • You’ll better understand what’s going on which will allow you to better troubleshoot if you encounter a problem down the road when working with your GUI
  • You will more than likely find yourself in front of a Unix environment one day and you’ll already know how to deal w/ Git.

2.) Verify Git is Installed

Open up a command prompt, terminal, console or whatever you want to call it and type:

$ git

If you see something like :

$ git: command not found

Something’s not right. Try installing again and take a look at your PATH environment variable.

But if you see something like:

usage: git [--version] [--exec-path[=GIT_EXEC_PATH]] [--html-path]
           [-p|--paginate|--no-pager] [--no-replace-objects]
           [--bare] [--git-dir=GIT_DIR] [--work-tree=GIT_WORK_TREE]
           [--help] COMMAND [ARGS]

The most commonly used git commands are:
   add        Add file contents to the index
...

You’re good to go!

3.) Configure Your User Name

After you have Git installed, a terminal and set your name and email address for Git to use to sign your commits:

$ git config --global user.name "John Doe"
$ git config --global user.email "jdoe@domain.com"

More Information

The Git Community Book has a little more detail on installing Git for your operating system here: http://book.git-scm.com/2_installing_git.html