On Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:00:51 -0800 (PST) "Luis M. Alonso" <jipal...@si.ehu.es> wrote:
> In [Ubuntu 12.04 LTS] the current version of git is 1.7.9.5 > After git clone https://github.com/git/git.git > git version shows 1.7.9.5 You have just downloaded the Git's source tree. Or course, this action alone did nothing to Git installed on your system. > How to update to 1.8...? Unfortunately, doing this *properly* might be way more involved than you suspect. The reason is that the Git package your OS provides is usually tailored to the rest of the system and is integrated to play well with the rest of the system, including proper de-installation, when needed. When a more recent version is needed for a Debian-like OS (Ubuntu included) the options are: 1) Install a more recent version from the so-called "backports" [1], if available. As captured by the name, "backports" are more recent versions of software "ported" (adapted, that is) for an older release of the enclosing OS. Unfortunately, as I gather from [2] and [3], there's no backported version of the git package for your OS release. 2) Building from the source. Basically you obtain the source code (you already did that), configure it so that it's installed in a way providing for easy removal (this usually means that the whole thing should be installed under a single directory, like ~/git), build and install. 3) Backporting a package yourself. This requires downloading the source package of the required version, [4] in your case, tweaking the package files [*], if needed, to make it build for your os, building and then installing the created packages using the `dpkg` tool. This is better than step (2) as it plays better with the rest of the system. You can also try to convince someone who maintains git packages in Ubuntu (unless they're just pulled as is from Debian) to backport 1.8.0 for your OS release. [*] Precisely how to do a backport is out of the scope of this message, if you're interested, try asking on Ubuntu support resources. 1. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports 2. http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=git 3. http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise-backports/ 4. http://packages.ubuntu.com/source/raring/git --
