Download the source archive from http://git-scm.com and extract it (I just extract it where it lands in my Downloads directory). Open a terminal in (or cd to) the extracted Git source directory (~/Downloads/git-1.7.2.1 as of my latest install).

Install required packages:

sudo apt-get install libcurl4-gnutls-dev libexpat1-dev libssl-dev gettext libz-dev asciidoc

Build and install Git and its documentation:

make prefix=/usr/local all doc
sudo make prefix=/usr/local install install-doc

If you don’t include the doc and install-doc tasks in the installation then the Git documentation will not be available via man pages or the git help command. If you don’t want the documentation then you can leave out those tasks and you won’t need to install the asciidoc package either. I prefer to have the documentation.

Based on this post at railstips.org, I decided to adjust my Bash prompt by appending the following to my ~/.bashrc file:

#...

function parse_git_branch {
  ref=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return
  echo "("${ref#refs/heads/}")"
}

BLACK="\[\033[0;30m\]"
BLUE="\[\033[0;34m\]"
VIOLET="\[\033[1;35m\]"
CYAN="\[\033[0;36m\]"

PS1="\n[$CYAN\u@\h:$BLUE\w$VIOLET \$(parse_git_branch)$BLACK]\n\$ "

The prompt will now show the name of the branch I am working in when the current directory is part of a Git repository. The original code used yellow, red, and green to highlight parts of the prompt. That messed with my mind when I ran RSpec and saw yellow and red when I was expecting all green. Rather than get used to it, I changed the colors. I also added some newlines to perhaps keep the command line neater when deep in a directory tree.

[Update 2010-07-23]

After running with the above settings for a while I decided I don’t care for the colors in the prompt. Don’t need the square brackets either. I do like seeing the current git branch. That simplifies things a bit.

#...

function parse_git_branch {
  ref=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return
  echo "("${ref#refs/heads/}")"
}

PS1="\n\u@\h:\w  \$(parse_git_branch)\n\$ "

[Update 2010-09-25]

Okay, maybe a little color…

#...

function parse_git_branch {
  ref=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return
  echo "("${ref#refs/heads/}")"
}

VIOLET="\[\033[1;35m\]"
NO_COLOR="\[\033[0;0m\]"  

PS1="\n$VIOLET\u@\h:\w  \$(parse_git_branch)$NO_COLOR\n\$ "

See. I told you it was "tweaking."

Book: Book – Pro Git – by Scott Chacon – Concise coverage of using Git. You can purchase the book or read the whole book online.

Book: Safari Books Online: Version Control with Git, 1st Edition

Tool: msysgit – Run Git on Windows from a specialized BASH prompt.

[Update 2010-07-03: Changed the order of the list so the resources I have used the most are above this note.]

Website: GitHub – Secure Git hosting and collaborative development

Video: Webcast: Git in One Hour – Scott Chacon shows a lot of what he covers in his book in this screencast.

Video: James Gregory on Git – James Gregory does a screencast on Git as well.

Website: git ready – learn git one commit at a time

Article: An introduction to git-svn for Subversion/SVK users and deserters

Article: scie.nti.st – Hosting Git repositories, The Easy (and Secure) Way – Gitosis.

Article: Deploying A Web Application with Git and FTP – Rob Conery shows one way he uses Git.

Article: Git For Windows Developers – Git Series – Part 1 – Jason Meridth – Los Techies – Describes using msysgit.

Article: Branch-Per-Feature – How I Manage Subversion With Git Branches – Los Techies

Article: Git's guts: Branches, HEAD, and fast-forwards – James Gregory's Blog – Los Techies

Article: Martin Fowler – Version Control Tools – Not about Git specifically.

Article: ReinH – A Git Workflow for Agile Teams

Article: Jer on Rails – My Git Workflow

Article: JustinFrench.com – Git Aliases Rock

Article: GitHub – Guides – Put your git branch name in your shell prompt

Article: A Note About Git Commit Messages | tpope.net

Article/Tool: Michael Bien's Weblog – NetBeans GIT support – I have not tried the NBGit plugin yet but I have been playing with NetBeans a bit.

Podcast: Hanselminutes Podcast 108 – Exploring Distributed Source Control with Git

Tool: git_remote_branch

Tool: tortoisegit – Maybe like TortoiseSVN. I have not tried it.

Tool: EGit – Git plugin for Eclipse. I have not tried it.