Chapter 03 — Installing & Configuring Git

Before you can use Git, you need to install it and tell it who you are. This chapter covers installation on all major operating systems and walks through the essential first-time configuration so that your commits are correctly attributed and your environment behaves predictably.

Installing Git

Windows

The recommended approach on Windows is Git for Windows, which installs Git along with Git Bash — a bash-compatible terminal emulator that provides the Unix-style shell environment used in this manual.

Download the installer from https://git-scm.com/download/win.
Run the installer. The defaults are sensible for most users; the only setting worth reviewing is the default editor (covered below).
After installation, open Git Bash from the Start menu to verify:

git --version
# git version 2.x.x.windows.x

Windows Terminal + Git Bash: If you prefer Windows Terminal, you can add Git Bash as a profile. This gives you a modern terminal interface with tabs and GPU rendering while still using Git Bash as the shell.

macOS

macOS ships with a system Git (installed as part of Xcode Command Line Tools), but it is often outdated. The cleanest approach is to install Git via Homebrew:

# Install Homebrew if you don't have it (see https://brew.sh)
brew install git

After installation, open a new terminal and verify:

git --version
# git version 2.x.x

If you see an older version number, your shell may still be finding the system Git. Check with which git — it should return /usr/local/bin/git (Intel) or /opt/homebrew/bin/git (Apple Silicon), not /usr/bin/git.

Linux

On Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git

On Fedora/RHEL-based distributions:

sudo dnf install git

On Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S git

Verify after installation:

git --version

Further reading: The official Git downloads page at https://git-scm.com/downloads covers additional platforms and package manager options.

First-Time Configuration

Git stores configuration in plain text files. Before making your first commit, you must set your name and email address — Git attaches these to every commit you create.

Your Identity

git config --global user.name "Alice Nguyen"
git config --global user.email "alice@example.com"

Use the --global flag to apply these settings to every repository on your machine. You can override them per-repository if needed (see Configuration Scopes below).

The email you configure here will appear in your commit history. If your repository is public and you want to keep your address private, GitHub provides a no-reply email address (<username>@users.noreply.github.com) that you can use instead — find it in your GitHub account settings under Emails.

Default Branch Name

When you run git init, Git creates an initial branch. Historically this was named master; the current convention (and GitHub's default) is main. Set this now to avoid mismatches:

git config --global init.defaultBranch main

Default Editor

Git opens a text editor for certain operations — most notably when you run git commit without a -m message flag, or during an interactive rebase. By default Git uses vim, which has a steep learning curve if you are not familiar with it.

To use nano instead:

git config --global core.editor nano

To use Visual Studio Code:

git config --global core.editor "code --wait"

The --wait flag tells Git to pause until you close the VS Code tab, rather than treating the editor as immediately finished.

Line Endings

Windows and Unix-like systems use different line ending characters (\r\n vs \n). If left unconfigured, this causes noisy diffs in cross-platform teams. The core.autocrlf setting controls how Git handles line endings:

Platform	Recommended setting	Effect
Windows	`true`	Convert `LF → CRLF` on checkout; `CRLF → LF` on commit
macOS / Linux	`input`	Convert `CRLF → LF` on commit; no conversion on checkout

# Windows
git config --global core.autocrlf true

# macOS / Linux
git config --global core.autocrlf input

For teams working across platforms, an alternative is to commit a .gitattributes file that declares line endings per file type — this is the more robust solution and is covered in Chapter 07.

Configuration Scopes

Git has three configuration scopes, each stored in a different file:

Scope	Flag	File location	Applies to
System	`--system`	`/etc/gitconfig` (Linux/macOS) or `C:\Program Files\Git\etc\gitconfig` (Windows)	Every user on the machine
Global	`--global`	`~/.gitconfig`	All repositories for the current user
Local	`--local`	`.git/config` inside the repository	That repository only

When Git reads a configuration value, it checks in the order local → global → system. Local settings always win.

Practical use of local config: If you maintain both personal and work repositories on the same machine, you can set your work email locally in each work repository without changing the global default:

# Inside a work repository only
git config --local user.email "alice.nguyen@company.com"

Viewing Your Configuration

List all settings

git config --list

This prints every setting Git can see, along with which file each one came from. If a key appears multiple times, the last one listed (lowest scope = most local) wins.

Show a specific setting

git config user.name
git config user.email
git config --global core.editor

Show which file a setting comes from

git config --list --show-origin

This is useful for diagnosing unexpected settings — you can see exactly which config file is responsible.

The `.gitconfig` File

All global settings are stored as plain text in ~/.gitconfig (your home directory). You can view and edit it directly:

cat ~/.gitconfig

A typical .gitconfig after following this chapter looks like:

[user]
    name = Alice Nguyen
    email = alice@example.com
[init]
    defaultBranch = main
[core]
    editor = code --wait
    autocrlf = input

You can edit this file manually in any text editor — the format is straightforward. Any mistake will cause Git to report a parse error with the file and line number.

Useful Aliases (Optional)

Git allows you to define short aliases for commands you use frequently. While Chapter 27 covers aliases in depth, a few useful ones are worth setting up now:

git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.br branch
git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --decorate"

After setting these, git st runs git status, git lg shows a compact decorated graph log, and so on.

Quick Reference

Task	Command
Check Git version	`git --version`
Set your name	`git config --global user.name "Your Name"`
Set your email	`git config --global user.email "you@example.com"`
Set default branch to `main`	`git config --global init.defaultBranch main`
Set editor to nano	`git config --global core.editor nano`
Set editor to VS Code	`git config --global core.editor "code --wait"`
List all settings	`git config --list`
List settings with file origins	`git config --list --show-origin`
Show one setting	`git config <key>`
Edit global config file directly	`nano ~/.gitconfig`

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