How to install Git on Almalinux or Rocky Linux 8

Git is an open-source and popular tool to provide a distributed version control platform generally used by developers and companies, to work individually or in a community using various platforms and IDEs. Here we learn the command to install Git on Rocky Linux 8 or AlmaLinux 8.

Git, first released in 2005, was designed for teams to use branches and merges on a regular basis to build up a clear history of the project. Even every team member can have a clear view to visualize the branches and merges of a project, using Git’s inbuilt tools. It is platform-independent and can therefore be used in almost any environment.

When multiple developers work on the same project from different locations, version control makes it easy to add changes independently while leaving tracks and logs. This not only offers transparency- who did what and when, but also gives access to older versions of the project at a later point in time.

The key feature that makes Git different from other version control systems is it doesn’t depend on a centrally stored database, instead, it relies on a distributed system. Therefore, there is no central storage, this implies each member of a project team has a kind of own copy of the project database – the repository.

Out of the box, Git comes as a command-line tool, however, there are many thirds party GUIL clients available to manage it graphically. The popular GitHub and GitLab web interfaces for Git projects are some of those. Apart from web-based GUI clients, Desktop ones are also available.

Steps to install Git on AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux 8

Commands given here to set up Git on RPM-based Rocky or AlmaLinux will be the same for other similar Linux such as CentOS, Fedora, Oracle Linux, RedHat, and others.

1. Requirements:

  • Rocky or AlmaLinux
  • A non-root sudo user
  • Internet connection

2. Run the DNF update

To ensure our system repository cache and all the already installed system packages are up to date; once run the system update command given below:

sudo dnf update

3. Command to Install Git on AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux 8

We don’t have to add any extra repository, the popular Git tool is already available through the base repo of both Almalinux and Rocky. Hence, simply execute the installation command using the DNF package manager.

sudo dnf install git -y
Install Git on AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux 8

4. Check the Version

Once the installation is completed, let’s confirm the same by checking the Git-installed version.

git --version

5. Configure Git

Now that we have git installed on our machine, we still need to add some configurations. There are a lot of options available to you (like the appearance and functionality of the client), but we’ll only do the two most important configurations here. On the one hand, we set our username, and on the other hand our email.

git config --global user.name h2s 
git config --global user.email [email protected]

Note: Replace the user and email items with what you you want to set in the above commands.

Any action we do in Git will now have a stamp of the name and email address we just provided. This way other users always know who did what and when. This brings order to the chaos, especially in large projects with many developers working on them.

6. Create a new repository – git init

As we mentioned earlier, git stores its files and history directly as folders in your project. To set up a new repository, we need to open our project directory and run git init. This will enable Git for that specific folder and create a hidden .git directory to store the repository’s history and configuration. If you don’t have any project already and want to start from scratch then first create the one with the name you want to give to your project.

Create a directory 

mkdir mygit

Get into the created directory

cd mygit

Now, initialize the git local repository

git init

You can see the content

ls -a .git

7. Checking the status of the repository – git status

To have the git status, the command is:

git status

To list all git commands and sub-commands

git help -a

Get help for some particular command 

git help <command>

8. Connect remote git repository

If you want to upload something to a remote repo, we first need to connect to it. For example, to link the one you have on GitHub,  BitBucket, or another service, we run the following line in the terminal:

git remote add origin remote-repository-link

For example, you have your own repository on GitHub and want to pull or push the changes into that.  The first switch to your Project directory where you have initialized the Git. After that connect the remote directory using the above-given command.

cd mygit
git remote add origin  https://github.com/h2smedia/HowTo.git

To pull the repository files:

git pull origin master

To push the changes made to files:

git push origin master

Note: Pushing requires a password,  however,  if you are using GitHub- password-based authentication is no longer usable in it. The user has to go for a token-based instead. Know more about it at the official blog of GitHub.

9. Remove or Uninstall

If you don’t need Git on Almalinux or Rocky Linux 8, then we can remove it using the same command we have used to install the same but with a different option.

sudo dnf remove git -y

For more information refer to the Git documentation.

10. Video Tutorial

Other Articles:

11 Most Popular Linux distros of the year 2021- To use in 2022
How to install Podman on Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux 8
How to Open or close ports in AlmaLinux or Rocky 

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