Familiarity with a Unix-style command line will be important in this course. Though we will guide you through the course. If you haven't used a Unix-style command line before, visit tutorial with instructions to follow on your own computer. Just 10 mins cake!
- Git Bash or Cygwin on Windows.
- Terminal for OSX and Linux.
Visit this page and click Download.
If you are prompted to either save the file or run it, select "Run". Otherwise, after downloading the file, double click on it to open it, and select "Run".
Continue through the install wizard, selecting the default options.
Open the Git Bash program, which can be accessed from the Start Menu via All Programs > Git > Git Bash. If you are using Windows 8, search for Git Bash in the app list.
You can now use Git commands, as well as standard Unix commands, within Git Bash. For example, try running git --version or ls. To copy and paste in Git Bash, follow the instructions over internet.
On Linux, open a terminal and install Git via your package manager.
For example, if you are using Ubuntu or another Debian-based distribution (eg. Ubuntu/mint), run sudo apt-get install git. If you're using Fedora, run sudo yum install git.
Now open a new terminal, and you will be able to run Git commands. For example, try running git --version.
To get information about how to use a Git command, run git help <command>. For example, to get help on the command git diff, the first Git command you'll learn in the course, run git help diff. The help pages will be in a similar format to Unix man pages.
The following resources may also be helpful in learning more about Git: