Git for Windows - Request for Beta Testers

git-for-windows-rc.md

Git for Windows - Beta Testers Guide

The Git for Windows team is currently testing their newest release candidates, which is a port of Git 2.3 to Windows. As this is a significant change, I've written up a guide for people who are interested in helping to test out things.

Recommended Setup

You can find the latest releases for Git for Windows over on the Releases page:

https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases

As you can see, there are four different downloads. The differences between them are:

• whether the tool target 32-bit or 64-bit Windows
• whether the file is an installer or a Portable (self-extracting) archive

I recommend using the Portable installers at this stage, as:

• the Portable archive can be used alongside your existing Git installation, without clashing
• no installer means you can just delete the folder to cleanup when you're done

To check whether you are running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows, run this command from Command Prompt:

wmic os get osarchitecture

Note: I strongly recommended using the new 64-bit version of Git for Windows, if possible.

So download the Portable archive for your desired version of Windows, launch it and change the install directory from the default. I'm going to use C:\git-for-windows\ for the purposes of this script.

Once you've done that, browse to the extracted folder and launch the git-bash.exe. There's also git-cmd.exe but the underlying setup should be the same.

And that's it.

Testing

While I'd love to see you using this in your everyday activity, at this point the team is looking for feedback that involves:

• errors in common scenarios
• errors that can be reproduced consistently
• errors in repositories that can be shared with the Git for Windows contributors

So if you find something that breaks, a good bug report is invaluable to the contributors. It should contain these details:

• What build do you have installed?
• What version of Windows are you running? 32-bit or 64-bit?
• What are the steps to reproduce the issue?
• Is the repository public? Can it be shared?
• If the error involves changes to the index or working directory (i.e. modified files), can the repository be archived and hosted somewhere like SkyDrive/Dropbox? This will help the contributors view the repository in the right state and help with reproducing the problem.

With all those details in hand, please file an issue here:

https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/new

Thanks

Due to how widely-adopted Git is, and the breadth of different setups (both for repositories and developers), it would be greatly appreciated to take time out to help test these builds to ensure the best quality Git tooling for Windows developers.

If you've read this far, thank you for taking time out to participate.

Is there any way to hook up the new git bash shell to an existing console terminal such as ConEmu/Cmder? The new terminal is of course fancier than pure cmd but is nowhere near a good 3rd party tool.

@jaccus: Yes, here is my conemu task, the "set" part is important:
set MSYSTEM=MINGW64 & c:\git-sdk-64\usr\bin\mintty -i /msys2.ico /usr/bin/zsh --login
You may want to change zsh to bash instead.

@jaccus we have discussed it, of course, but not looked into it. Why don't you give it a try? I'd love to know how Git Bash would need to be called with ConEmu/Console2/etc...

@oysteinkrog can you please edit the string resources of git-bash? You should be able to replace the mintty call -- the env variables are automatically set correctly.

@oysteinkrog thanks, setting MSYSTEM variable was they key here. Otherwise /mingw64/bin would not be added to PATH.

@dscho Here's ConEmu task command for Bash that worked nicely in my Cmder:

MSYSTEM=MINGW64 & "D:\Git2358\usr\bin\bash.exe" --login -i -new_console:n

@jaccus did you forget the word set at the beginning of your commandline? Mine seems to require it (as mentioned by @oysteinkrog

Whoops! @jaccus I completely missed your response... However, I would like to see a command-line that I could run from, say, cmd to open a new ConEmu with the Bash running inside.

The idea is that we could detect in the installer that the user has ConEmu (or Console2 or whatever) installed on their system and let them choose which terminal to use by default. Depending on that choice, we would then have to edit the string resource inside git-bash.exe accordingly. This will then be executed when double-clicking git-bash.exe (after setting up not only MSYSTEM but also PATH and possibly other things in the future).

However, I would really like to discuss this in a proper ticket: git-for-windows/git#96 (@oysteinkrog @jaccus @kohenkatz help would be much appreciated!)

@shiftkey how do you feel about moving this really nice document into the Git for Windows wiki

I see a lot of talk about ConEmu. I'm using Console2, and I'm not sure how to get this to work. Anyone know?

@joezimjs -- Console2 works for me! You must use the same 32/64 bit version of Console2 as your Git install. If they don't match, Console2 will just freeze on start.

To add Git as a new console type in Console2, go to Console2 Settings -> Tabs -> Add and then in the "Shell" box, put

"C:\Program Files\Git\bin\sh.exe" --login -i

(or Program Files (x86) if you're using 32-bit versions of each)

Then you can use File->New Tab to launch a new tab or use ctrl-F1 ctrl-F2 etc.