Git

Open-Source Version Control System

Written 2026/05/08

Installation

Whether you use Linux, Windows, or macOS, Git can be installed.

Linux: see install page for other kernels:

# Debian/Ubuntu
apt-get install git

# Arch
pacman -S git

macOS:

# must have homebrew installed
brew install git 

For Windows, it’s honestly simplest to just navigate to the installation page for Git and download from there. I used Windows for a long time and used Git Bash, I highly recommend it if you’re tied to Windows as it’ll help you get comfortable with Bash. Using Powershell isn’t very fun when everyone around you is using something else.

Setup

With Git present on your machine, you’ll want to set a few things before proceeding. All of your future commits will be tied to a username and email address, so those must be specified early.

Note: Moving forward, it is assumed that you’re using Bash or Zsh

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "email@example.com"

Use --global so that you just have to do this the one time on this specific machine. I have historically set the user.name as my github username, but your first and last name are probably better suited.

Much more to come…

References

https://git-scm.com/book/ms/v2/Getting-Started-First-Time-Git-Setup