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Installing Git

adam breznicky edited this page Sep 10, 2019 · 1 revision

Source: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Getting-Started-Installing-Git

Before you start using Git, you have to make it available on your computer. Even if it’s already installed, it’s probably a good idea to update to the latest version. You can either install it as a package or via another installer, or download the source code and compile it yourself.

Installing on Linux

If you want to install the basic Git tools on Linux via a binary installer, you can generally do so through the package management tool that comes with your distribution. If you’re on Fedora (or any closely-related RPM-based distribution, such as RHEL or CentOS), you can use dnf:

$ sudo dnf install git-all

If you’re on a Debian-based distribution, such as Ubuntu, try apt:

$ sudo apt install git-all

For more options, there are instructions for installing on several different Unix distributions on the Git website, at https://git-scm.com/download/linux.

Installing on macOS

There are several ways to install Git on a Mac. The easiest is probably to install the Xcode Command Line Tools. On Mavericks (10.9) or above you can do this simply by trying to run git from the Terminal the very first time.

$ git --version

If you don’t have it installed already, it will prompt you to install it.

If you want a more up to date version, you can also install it via a binary installer. A macOS Git installer is maintained and available for download at the Git website, at https://git-scm.com/download/mac.

Installing on Windows

There are also a few ways to install Git on Windows. The most official build is available for download on the Git website. Just go to https://git-scm.com/download/win and the download will start automatically. Note that this is a project called Git for Windows, which is separate from Git itself; for more information on it, go to https://gitforwindows.org.

To get an automated installation you can use the Git Chocolatey package. Note that the Chocolatey package is community maintained.

Another easy way to get Git installed is by installing GitHub Desktop. The installer includes a command line version of Git as well as the GUI. It also works well with PowerShell, and sets up solid credential caching and sane CRLF settings. We’ll learn more about those things a little later, but suffice it to say they’re things you want. You can download this from the GitHub Desktop website.