Tudor Hulubei » GNU Interactive Tools

Introduction

GIT is a set of interactive tools. It contains an extensible file system browser, an ascii/hex file viewer, a process viewer/killer and some other related utilities and shell scripts. It can be used to increase the speed and efficiency of most of the daily tasks such as copying and moving files and directories, invoking editors, compressing and uncompressing files, creating and expanding archives, compiling programs, sending mail, etc. GIT doesn't attempt to do everything, but instead follows a minimalistic approach, trying to facilitate the most frequent operations in a very small, lightweight executable.

Supported Platforms

GIT has been carefully coded so that it can run on a wide variety of Unix systems. The language used is the old style K&R, so that even the oldest C compiler, with no ANSI support will have no problems compiling it.

You can find here the platforms on which GNU Interactive Tools has been succesfully ported. This are the machines and operating systems I had reports that GIT has been succesfully compiled/run. It doesn't mean GIT will not run on other machines, it's just that I never had the opportunity to try it out.

No.ecture            Operating System

 1.   486/i586          GNU Hurd 0.1
 2.   486/i586          Linux
 3.   486/i586          Thix 0.3.2
 4.   tion 5000         ULTRIX 4.2A
 5.   tion 5000         ULTRIX 4.3
 6.   tion 5000         ULTRIX 4.4
 7.   /715              HP-UX A.09.03
 8.   /735              HP-UX B.10.01
 9.   /817              HP-UX B.10.01
10.   /817              HP-UX A.08.03
11.   /834              HP-UX A.B7.00
12.   C                 AIX 3.2.5
13.   /6000             AIX 3.2.5
14.   /6000             AIX 4.1.1
15.                     SunOS 4.0.3
16.                     SunOS 4.1.1
17.                     SunOS 4.1.3
18.                     SunOS 5.3
19.                     SunOS 5.4
20.                     SunOS 5.5
21.                     SunOS 5.5.1
22.                     SunOS 5.6
23.                     IRIX 4.0.5F
24.                     IRIX 5.2
25.   digo/2            IRIX 5.3
26.   werChallenge      IRIX64 6.1
27.   32                IRIX 6.3
28.                     AOS
29.                     NEWS-OS
30.                     OSF1 V1.2
31.                     OSF1 V3.2
32.                     OSF1 V4.0
33.                     NetBSD 1.0A
34.                     NetBSD 1.2
35.                     NetBSD 1.2E
36.                     BSD 4.3
37.                     Minix 1.16.25.1
38.                     sysV68 R3V7.1
39.                     Next Step 3.2
40.                     B.O.S. 02.01
41.                     qnx 4.22
42.                     AT&T 3B2
43.                     SCO 3.2 V 4.2
44.                     Unix System V 4.0

Recent Changes

Version 4.3.20

Moving across filesystems now preserves file ownership.
Copying no longer preserves file ownership.
F7 (`make-directory') creates all the intermediate directories.
Fixed a long standing bug in the xid code for long user names (I could finally reproduce it myself).
Fixed a crash in the incremental search code.

Version 4.3.19

Fixed 2 compilation problems on non-ANSI C compilers.
Minor fixes in gitaction.

Version 4.3.18

The build/installation procedure is now based on automake.
`make prefix=some_path' no longer recompiles git. According to the new GNU coding standards this is the correct behaviour.
The key sequence typed so far is displayed in the status bar, if not completed in one second.
`select-extension'/`unselect-extension': new builtin commands, bound on `Alt-+'/`Alt--' (or `ESC +'/`ESC -'). These commands select/unselect all the files in the current directory that have the same extension as the current file. That is, if the current file is "git.c", `select-extension' will select all the "*.c" files in the current directory. If the current file does not have an extension (including the case where its name starts with a dot), no selections/unselections are made.
The insertion of file/directory names in the command line (Alt-Enter) is a little bit smarter. Quotes are added only when necessary and when before the current possition there is a /, no space is added before the name, to allow for path building.
The incremental forward/backwards search mechanism can recall the last searched string if the user types ^S/^R while the string is empty. This is similar to what Emacs does.
F2 works on *.pgp files (will ask for a passphrase).
`ESC m f' mounts the first floppy in /mnt/floppy. `ESC r f' unmounts it.
A simple scroll-bar thumb (#) has been added on the right side of the panel's frame.
The shell command currently being executed is displayed on the title of the xterm window.
GIT_BROWSER: new environment variable. If set, git will use this to view html documents. If GIT_BROWSER is not set, lynx will be used instead.
A more Unix like key sequence structure in gitps and gitview. You can scroll up and down with `Space' and `Backspace' and quit with `q'.
Binary file split on `^C /' and (in background) on `^C b /'.
The inconsistency between the keys and the signal names in gitps have been fixed. Signal selection is done with upper case letters only.
Other bug fixes.

Version 4.3.17

Many fixes and updates.
Bzip2 compression on `^C .'.
`^C -' creates a .tar.bz2 archive of the current directory. `^C b -' does the same thing in background.
`Alt-m z' and `Alt-r z' (or `ESC m z' and `ESC r z') will mount/unmount the ZIP drive, provided you link /mnt/zip to the appropriate device in /dev.
`Alt-m j' and `Alt-r j' (or `ESC m j' and `ESC r j') will mount/unmount the JAZ drive, provided you link /mnt/jaz to the appropriate device in /dev.
HTML doclumentation included, installed in $(prefix)/lib/git/html. If lynx is installed, `^X h' will point it to the right place.
Tested on Solaris 2.6.
Ported to IRIX 6.3 (mips-sgi-irix6.3) (TERM=iris-ansi).
Ported to UNIX System V 4.0 (i486-pc-sysv4.0).
If possible, `git' will print the current path on the title of xterm terminal emulators. `gitps' will print the ps(1) options used, and `gitview' will print the name of the file it is currently viewing.
GENERIC-UNPACK: New command that unifies archive unpacking. It unpacks archives based on the extension of the file by calling the `gitunpack' script to do the job. Currently the `gitunpack' script is able to handle *.tar, *.tar.gz, *.tar.bz, *.tar.bz2, *.tar.Z, *.Z, *.gz, *.bz, *.bz2, *.zip, *.jar, *.arg, *.rar, *.shar, *.deb, *.lha, *.lzh, *.uu and *.a. The binding for GENERIC-UNPACK is `^C X' - the one used before for UNCOMPRESS-UNTAR which is obsolete and has been removed (together with B-UNCOMPRESS-UNTAR, UNTAR and B-UNTAR).
It is possible to unpack an archive into a given directory, using GENERIC-UNPACK-INTO (^CV or ^CbV for the background version). If the directory does not exist, it is created. Thanks to Viorel Anghel for suggesting this.
gitunpack (^CX, ^CbX) will unpack all the selected files.
The rpm-related commands (^CI, ^CbI, ^Ci, ^Cbi, ^CN, ^CbN) will now act (install, uninstall, upgrade) on all the selected files.
Added command line options. Try `git -h', `gitps -h' and `gitview -h' for details.
`git' will use colors if the COLORTERM environment variable is defined.
`git' now accepts starting directories in the command line.

For the MS-DOS die-hards: I added support for making the shell `chdir' to the path `git' was in before exiting. `bash' users need to use this shell function:

function g
{
    git -p $@ 3> /tmp/git.p.$$

    if test -s /tmp/git.p.$$; then
	if test -d "`cat /tmp/git.p.$$`"; then
	    cd "`cat /tmp/git.p.$$`"
	else
	    cd
	fi
    fi

    rm -f /tmp/git.p.$$
}

Notice that this won't work if `git' is suspended and then resumed (the `cd' command in the script will be executed immediately after `git' is suspended, not after it exits).
It is now possible to specify a list of patterns to the `+' and `-' commands, thanks to "Viorel ANGHEL <vang@pizza.pub.ro>". For instance, typing `+ *.java' in the command line will select all the java files (in addition to whatever files were currently selected).
Support for SIGWINCH has been added. `git' can be resized at will, regardless of whether it is currently doing something or not.
Better support for suspending `git'. `git' can now be suspended at any time, including while it is doing something (like copying files, etc). Also before `git' launches new programs, it will set the SIGTSTP handler to SIG_IGN. Well behaved programs ((X)Emacs, ncftp, the GNU shell utile, etc.) will notice this and ignore suspend signals as well.
refresh now works even during incremental searches & input line reads (like make-directory, etc.).
After changing the sorting method, `git' will reposition on the panel entry that was the _current_ entry before the sorting. A similar repositioning attempt is performed after creating new directories in the current directory.
It is now possible to view the names of those files/directories that do not fit into the panel's visible area by using the `horizontal-scroll-left' and `horizontal-scroll-right' commands, bound on Alt-g and Alt-j (or `ESC g' and `ESC j' if you don't have a working Alt key).
The clock is back, with a (hopefully) safer implementation.
gitmount accepts a list of devices to mount (as usual, without the /dev/prefix). Also it is possible to select several directories in /mnt (corresponding to devices) and mount/umount all of them with `ESC m t' and `ESC r t'.

Version 4.3.16

Minor fixes and updates.

Version 4.3.15

MIME-PACK, B-MIME-PACK, MIME-UNPACK, B-MIME-UNPACK - new user defined commands that pack/unpack mime files. The corresponding key bindings are: ^Ck, ^Cbk, ^CK and ^CbK. The mpack package should be installed in order for these to work.
MIME-MAIL, B-MIME-MAIL - new user defined commands that can send files by mail as mime messages. The corresponding key bindings are: ^C2m and ^Cb2m. The mpack package is required for these ones as well.
FAST-DIFF - new user defined command (on ^Cfd). Calls diff -r -q and reports differences between directories in terms of files that differ, but does not report the actual differences between them.
Added support for *.mov to gitaction.
Added support for bin packing (i.e. packing files in the smallest number of bins). See the info documentation for details.
Some user defined commands now protect "weird" file names with the POSIX specified -- argument that terminates all options. Thus for some commands the errors that used to occur when dealing with file names beginning with a hyphen are now fixed, depending on whether or not that particular command supports the -- argument. For the ones that don't (emacs, ghostview, tar, basename, ar, xv, xanim, xfig, lynx, mpeg_play, zip/unzip, ispell, etc), there is nothing I can do. git cannot check whether or not programs actually do support this POSIX feature.
`git' now works with gzip only. Support for `compress' as an alternative has been removed. Most archives today are in `gzip' format anyway.
Multiple patterns are accepted on `select-files-matching-pattern'. The patterns are separated by spaces. Spaces and \s should be escaped with a \ if part of the pattern.

Version 4.3.14

Added support for exec_prefix.
Added support for make prefix=...
Added support for most of the commands provided in the mtools package. See the ^Cm prefixes in term/.gitrc.common.
File comparison is now built-in (on ^C B, as usual). gitcmp is gone.
Added support for the xhost command on ^X H.

Version 4.3.13

Ported to AT&T 3B2 systems, thanks to Gaylen Miller <gaylen@proaxis.com>.
Under RedHat Linux 4.0 the rxvt terminal emulator exports TERM=xterm-color which makes it possible to figure out that we have color support. GIT now supports xterm-color as well.
M-. (ESC .) works better in the sense that it goes up to the previous directory and automatically positions on the entry corresponding to the old directory.
Tested on NetBSD 1.2.
^CI installs the RPM package under the cursor.
^Ci uninstalls the RPM package under the cursor.
^CN upgrades the RPM package under the cursor.
^Cq queries the `rpm' package manager.
These commands also have background versions: ^CbI, ^Cbi and ^CbN.
Fixes to make git compile cleanly to some new architectures thanks to Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe@math.utah.edu>.

Version 4.3.12

Added recursive context diffs on ^Cd and ^Cbd (background). See the documentation for details.
^G behaves better as an interrupt key.
Added support for meta keys with the 8th bit set.
The commands binded on the function keys are now to the M-number (ESC + number) key sequence as well. ESC + 1 and ESC + 2 which used to chdir to the /mnt/fdX directories have been moved on ESC ESC 1 and ESC ESC 2.
`git' can now compare directories: ^Ccq will quickly compare the file names, sizes and time stamps while ^Cct will thoroughly compare the contents of each file with the contents of its couterpart (if any) from the other panel.
`name-upcase' & `name-downcase': New builtin functions for renaming the selected entries to uppercase & lowercase.
`git' compiles out of the box under the Hurd.

Version 4.3.11

An installation problem has been fixed. GIT no longer attempts to change the permissions of directories.
backward-kill-word is now on ESC Ctrl-H as well.
The `install' rule now depends on `all', which means you can type `make install' and get the entire package compiled and installed.
There is now a separate rule called install-only that you can use to install git without re-checking the dependencies.
The install_strip rule has been renamed to install-strip.

Version 4.3.10

Ported to qnx 4.22 thanks to Michael Hunter <mphunter@qnx.com>.
Ported to B.O.S 02.01 (Bull Operating System - m68k-bull-sysv3).
Panels are no longer redrawn immediately after commands started from the command line or by pressing RETURN on the executable. Most users seem to prefer it this way.
Ported to Next Step 3.2 - m68k-next-nextstep3:
NeXT Mach 3.2: Mon Oct 18 21:57:41 PDT 1993;
root(rcbuilder):mk-149.30.15.obj~2/RC_m68k/RELEASE_M68K
Processor type: MC680x0 (68040)
thanks to Paul Nevai - nevai@math.ohio-state.edu
The file system free space is displayed in a more intuitive way, i.e. 8,881,152 instead of 8881152. The same thing holds for the sum of selected files.
Support for the AIX hft teminal, thanks to Andrei Caraman <xax@pub.ro>.
New inputline functions (inspired from the emacs counterparts):

FUNCTI          BINDING         ACTION
===============================================================
kill-w          ESC d (M-d)     delete next word
downca          ESC l (M-l)     convert next word to lower case
upcase          ESC u (M-l)     convert next word to upper case
capitad         ESC c (M-l)     capitalize next word

Unfort this has lots of side effects:

  - palay-* names & the corresponding bindings have been changed:
      e a       = panel-enable-all
                  (previously called panel-display-all)
      e d       = panel-enable-date-time
                  (previously called panel-display-date-time)
      e f       = panel-enable-full-name
                  (previously called panel-display-full-name)
      e m       = panel-enable-mode
                  (previously called panel-display-mode)
      e o       = panel-enable-owner-group
                  (previously called panel-display-owner-group)
      e s       = panel-enable-size
                  (previously called panel-display-size)

  - codirectory names & the corresponding bindings have been changed:
      a c       adapt-current-directory
                (previously called conform-current-directory)
      a o       adapt-other-directory
                (previously called conform-other-directory)

  - thefined UMOUNT bindings have been changed:
      r a       remove (umount) /dev/fd0
      r b       remove (umount) /dev/fd1
      r t       remove (umount) the fs under the current directory

As you can see, 4 lines of new features, 11 of side effects. Sorry about this changes, but at the time I decided to use the previous bindings I had no idea how wonderful emacs is :-).

Version 4.3.9

A bug introduced in 4.3.8 has been fixed.
Better handling of `aixterm' terminal emulators under AIX.

Version 4.3.8

A few bugs have been fixed and some slow algorithms have been speed up.
I have tested git on our recently installed NFS volume and tried to fix the related problems. I don't know whether or not I have fixed all of them. Please let me know if it works for you.
The default ANSI colors are correctly restored under rxvt and most likely under any other (bug free :-) ANSI capable terminal or terminal emulator.
New commands in .gitrc.common.
Fti matching is delayed until needed.
gitrgrep & Co. use 'find' to walk through the file system tree.
gitregrep and gitfgrep will call egrep and fgrep recursively.
The clock is gone. There were too many races. Sorry guys :-( Type ^XT to get the current date/time (DATE).
Better terminal optimizations and terminal I/O. It should work a faster on almost every terminal.
The gitaction script has been improved. It is now able to handle compressed movies and accepts uppercase extensions for all image types. Also, all the actions on C, C++, PGP, LEX, YACC, make files have been removed. Compiling the current file was a little bit silly since most .c files are part of bigger projects and compiling them separately is useless.
Many new file types are now detected in the [GIT_FTI] section. If git seems slow due to the fact that about 300 file patterns are matched for each file entry displayed, consider setting TypeSensitivity to OFF or removing some of the unnecessary patterns from .gitrc.common's [GIT-FTI] section. However, 4.3.8 should work much better than 4.3.7 since the patterns are matched only when necessary and no more than once.
The ./configure option for requesting the terminfo library is now --with-terminfo. The previous option (--enable-terminfo) is no longer supported.
A bug preventing users from defining their own colors in the [GIT-FTI] section of their ~/.gitrc.TERM file has been fixed thanks to Marian Ciobanu <ciobi@liis.sfos.ro>.
The delay at the end of the file type sensitive action executed by the gitaction script has been removed. This was annoying, especially under X when starting viewers in background.
Even though the default .gitrc.xterm is still configured with AnsiColors = OFF, it is highly recommended to set it to ON on terminal emulators that have ANSI colors support (aixterm under AIX, xterm under ULTRIX, rxvt under Linux).
git no longer attempts to execute empty commands at the command prompt (that is, commands that contain only spaces and semi-columns. This is not a bug, is a feature :-)
Philippe De Muyter ported GIT 4.3.7 to SVR2/SVR3 (m68k-motorola-sysv). I have integrated his patch into 4.3.8.

Version 4.3.7

Few improvements, mostly fixes. All the compilation/installation problems reported in 4.3.6 have been fixed (I hope :-).
RUMORS, RUMORS, RUMORS, .... it've heard that newer Linux systems use "linux" instead of "console" for the TERM environment variable. Due to this, I've linked .gitrc.linux to .gitrc.console. I'm not sure if it will really be useful, but it won't hurt.
`git' can now display files using different colors, depending on their types as specified by the [GIT-FTI] section (FTI stands for file type information). See .gitrc.common for more details. If you don't want/like colors, they can be disabled by setting the TypeSensitivity variable to OFF. Note that I've considered more important to emphasize the file type and *NOT* the fact that it is compressed. That means that foo.c and foo.c.gz will be displayed using the same color. Of course, this approach can be changed by modifying the configuration file...
GIT_PAGER is a new environment variable that replaces "more" in all the user defined commands described in the configuration files. If your system has "less", just add GIT_PAGER=less to your environment. By default GIT_PAGER='more'. gitaction & .gitaction use GIT_PAGER too.
conform-current-directory & conform-other-directory now save the new directory into the directory history.
Faster startup.
^C= now performs recursive diff.
`flip' is the default action for *.fli and *.flc. See gitaction for details.
tty.c now uses /dev/vcsa to dump/restore the screen. The ioctl() system call is no longer used. You should have the right to r/w the corresponding /dev/vcsaX since I don't like setuids, and I also think that the appropriate permission/owner should be set by the login utility in the same way as for /dev/ttyX. Until then, if you are on a single-user machine or you don't care much about security, you can give unrestricted r/w permission on /dev/vcsaX.

Version 4.3.6

Added scroll step. A new built-in function (set-scroll-step) lets you modify the panel scroll step. It is also possible to set it in the configuration file using the StartupScrollStep variable. The built-in function set-scroll-step is binded on ^XP.
Added incremental search. The built-in functions isearch-backward and isearch-forward are mapped on ^S and ^R (as in emacs). If the hardware doesn't let you change the default meaning of ^S, you can use the alternate key sequences ^Xs and ^Xr. Wrapped isearch is also provided.
select-file has been moved on ^T since ^R is now used for isearch-backward. You can also use Ctrl-\ (^\) for select-file (if available). Sorry, I promise that this is the last time I am moving this one :-). Anyway, if you are using Linux, you can continue to press the 'Insert' key.
Verdoolaege Sven has contributed an enhanced gitaction script. Default actions are now available for many new file extensions: zip, arj, rar, mod, s3m, voc, wav, lsm, jpeg, mpg, ps, dvi and tex. I also added support for compressed and uncompressed manual pages.
A bug in getting the size of symbolic links has been fixed. Only symbolic links with no target have been affected.
It is now possible to have a command with no body, still being able to chdir to the directory specified in the configuration line. You can switch between directories much faster. A command name is still required.
- M-/ (ESC-/, Alt-/ under Linux) goes to / - M-. (ESC-., Alt-. under Linux) goes to .. - M-h (ESC-h, Alt-h under Linux) goes to $HOME - M-i (ESC-i, Alt-i under Linux) goes to /usr/include
Han Holl made gitrgrep work on SCO 3.2 V 4.2. He also reported some other problems under SCO. See the PROBLEMS file.
Alexander Jolk <p6mqt001@cicrp.jussieu.fr> requested that the Makefiles makes no provisions in order not to display the commands. Done.
Preformatted manual pages are no longer part of the distribution. In fact, manual pages have not been updated in this version. The GNU projects seems to consider them obsolete, and I think that updating only the info file will be enough. Each release will have a decent set of manual pages, but only to figure out what it is all about, not as a reliable source of information about GIT.
A directory history is provided, making it easy to switch between directories within a given set. If you change the current directory with ^Xd or you specify a new-dir field to a command, the directory is added to the directory history. You can switch to the previous directory with ^X^P, to the next directory with ^X^N and you can reset the entire directory history with ^X^R. After reseting the directory history, the current directory is automatically added to it.
A new variable (ConfirmOnExit) has been added to the [GIT-Setup] section, allowing you to specify if you want to be asked for confirmation at exit. The default is not to be asked for confirmation.
Added tilde expansion on 'copy' and on 'move'. It should have been there from the very beginning.
make-directory no longer expect a base-name. The directory name is tilde_expand()-ed and then created, if possible.
The FIND function no longer asks for the start directory. It simply ask the file name and starts searching it from the current directory.
It is now possible to select directories and delete / copy / move them using the same builtin functions used in the previous versions for file only operations. Since it is inherently dangerous to delete directories, if the directory to be deleted is not empty, the user is prompted twice, in order to reduce the possibility of an error. Briefly, you can use the same key binding for both file and directories common operations (i.e. pressing F8 or ^C D will delete the current file (or directory) if there are no selected files / directories, or all the selected files and directories otherwise). You should pay attention because directories are deleted recursively. Also note that the select-all built-in function doesn't select directories. You should select them "by hand". Just for safety...
Most file commands have been changed in order to act on the selected files. As an example, if you select some files in a panel and then start the COMPRESS command, `git' will compress all the selected files, not only the current one. If the command used (gzip in our case) exits successfully, all the selected files will become unselected. However, if an error occur, `git' will *not* unselect the selected files since there is no way to tell (in general) which files have been successfully processed.
An utility for wiping files is provided. Its name is (of course) gitwipe and is binded on ^C W. gitwipe overwrites the file contents with a random sequence of numbers and then calls sync(). Note that gitwipe does *not* delete the file since (under Linux at least) the sync() system call might return before actually writing the new file contents to disk. Deleting the file might be dangerous because some file systems can detect that the blocks in the file are no longer used and never write them back to disk in order to improve performance. It is up to you to delete the file(s) at a later moment.
A new scheme is used for the configuration files. Since most of the key bindings are common to all the terminal types and only a few are really terminal specific, a new configuration file called .gitrc.common is used to keep the 'common' ones. This new confi- guration file contains only the [GITxxx-Keys] sections. Terminal specific key bindings can be defined as usual in the .gitrc.TERM files and, if a conflict occurs, the .gitrc.TERM definition is used, giving the user the possibility to overwrite a 'common' key binding if it wishes to do so.
The configuration files commands have been enhanced with a new format specifier:
'%?{confirmation}'
This format specifier only asks for confirmation before expanding / executing the current command. The 'confirmation' string is displayed and if the user doesn't confirm, the command is aborted. Otherwise, %?{...} expands to a null string and the command is %expanded / executed normally.
A separate history is kept for each command. This is true for both built-in and user-defined commands. For example, if you search a file using the user-defined FIND command and, later, you call the FIND function again, you can walk through the file names history using the arrow keys or ESC p / ESC n (M-p / M-n in emacs).
Three built-in functions have been added:
enlarge-panel - binded on ^X1 (C-X 1) enlarge-other-panel - binded on ^X0 (C-X 0) two-panels - binded on ^X2 (C-X 2)
enlarge-panel will maximize the current panel, enlarge-other-panel the other one. One of the panels will become invisible. However, *all* the operations can still be performed. The invisible panel will remain the default destination for copy/move operations. TAB will also continue to work. two-panels will restore the original two panels mode.
A new display mode, suitable for enlarged panels, is provided. This new mode combines all the other modes, displaying the owner, group, date, time, size and mode of a file. It is automatically selected by enlarge-panel and enlarge-other-panel but can be changed afterward, by pressing ^] (C-]).
A 'lock' built-in function has been added. It is binded on ^X p (C-x p) and locks the terminal until the password typed at lock time is correctly retyped.
The `git' panels are no longer deleted/restored when a background command is started.
A .gitrc.sun configuration file has been added. It is a link to .gitrc.generic.
New Linux kernels seem to use the /dev/vcs devices to dump the screen contents. I dont' have access to such a kernel right know, but I will fix this in the next release. See the file PROBLEMS for details.
The texinfo documentation has been rewritten from scratch. It is better organized and has many new additions. It also contains an exhaustive description of all the default key bindings. There are still many things that can be done, though.
A dvi Makefile target has been aded. Type 'make dvi' if you want to create the git.dvi file from git.texinfo. After that, you should be able to get a PostScript documentation using dvips.
A last minute Minix 1.6.25.1 port. Works fine, has colors. A .gitrc.minix has been added to the distribution.

Version 4.3.5

Owner and group names are now being cached using hash tables in order to increase the directory reading speed.
`git' is now able to display the file system free space on many systems. GIT 4.3.4 was only able to do this under Linux, using the statfs() system call. GIT 4.3.5 uses a modified version of the fsusage.c file from the GNU fileutils 3.2 package.
^H (8), ^I (9), ^J (10), ^M (13), ^SPC (0) and BACKSPACE (127) can be configured in the configuration files.
The interrupt & quit characters are both ^G now. You can exit from GIT with ^X^C (this is the default binding but you can change it, of course :-) ).
The entire set of default key bindings has been changed. I have tried to make them be more emacs-like (where possible). Since it is impossible to use 'z' to compress a file or 'Z' to uncompress it as emacs does in the 'dired' mode because 'a', 'A', ... 'z', 'Z', etc are used to enter commands in the input line, I have decided to use the ^C prefix key for file operations. Background commands are prefixed with ^Cb. You should read the configuration files for more details.
`git' now has an editable input line. Most emacs-like editing functions suitable for editing one line of input are now available:

Functi              GIT style:      Emacs style:

backwa                  ^B              C-b
forwar                  ^F              C-f
backwa                  ^[b             M-b
forwar                  ^[f             M-f
beginnine               ^A              C-a
end-of                  ^E              C-e
delete                  ^D              C-d
backwae-char            ^_              DEL
backwaword              ^[^_            M-DEL
kill-l                  ^[k             C-k
kill-ting-of-line       ^U
kill-t-line             ^K
just-o                  ^[^@            M-SPC
deletetal-space         ^[\             M-\
action                  ^M              RET
set-ma                  ^$              C-SPC
kill-r                  ^W              C-w
kill-r                  ^[w             M-w
yank                    ^Y              C-Y
exchan-and-mark         ^X^X            C-x C-x

Since the entire input line code has been changed / improved, the 2048 bytes length limit no longer exist. The input line can hold as many characters as you want.
All the built-in command names have been changed in order to match the emacs style function names: <ChangePanel> has become change-panel. By convention, built-in commands are now lowercase while user defined commands are uppercase.
When copying files that are longer than 32 Kb, the copied percent is displayed on the status bar.
The copy_files built-in command can be interrupted in the middle of a file copy action. If the operation is interrupted in the middle, the incomplete file is deleted.
The configuration files are using now shell environment variables to call the shell, editor, mail reader, compress and virtual memory status utility. That means that if you set GIT_SHELL, GIT_EDITOR, GIT_RMAIL, GIT_COMPRESS or GIT_VMSTAT to some value, that value will be used instead of the default one. The defaults are:

GIT_SHn/sh'
GIT_ED'
GIT_RMcs -f rmail'
GIT_COgzip -9'
GIT_VMee'

If GIT_SHELL is not defined but SHELL is, GIT_SHELL will be set to that value.
If GIT_EDITOR is not defined but EDITOR is, GIT_EDITOR will be set to that value.
History expansion has been added. `git' now takes advantage of the full power of the history library. Each command entered at the prompt is expanded and added to the history. !!, !?, !-n, ... are now available. See the history library documentation for more details.
The package can be compiled in a different directory, keeping the source tree unmodified. You should be able to make an empty directory, chdir to it and start git-4.3.5/configure, then make.
The distribution has been split into three directories: src, man and info.
GIT has been tested on IRIX 4.0.5F. It works. It also works on SunOS 4.1.3, Solaris 2.3 and Irix 5.2 according to Eric Jaron Stieglitz <ephraim@ctr.columbia.edu>.
`make install' creates a symbolic link from $(libdir)/.gitrc.xterm to $(libdir)/.gitrc.xterms in order to avoid problems on systems that have the TERM environment variable defined as xterms instead of xterm.
A script doing recursive grep (gitrgrep) has been added to the distribution. It might be useful.

Version 4.3.4

Richard Stallman saw it and agreed to be part of the GNU project.
The package is no longer called 'UNIX Interactive Tools'. I've changed its name to 'GNU Interactive Tools'.
GIT is now able to correctly restore the terminal foreground and background under X. The previous version had a problem with this because there is no way to find out the terminal colors at startup. The [Setup] section of the configuration file specifies the colors that GIT should set at exit.
If gcc is detected at configure time, -Wall is added to CFLAGS.
A bug in Makefile.in has been fixed.
Two gitps bugs have been fixed.
Better ^Z (suspend) management. GIT doesn't wait any longer for a key to be pressed after the 'fg' command is entered at the shell prompt.
The hpterm terminal emulator support works better. It is far from being perfect, but it works better than the previous versions.
Added support for System V and BSD terminal interfaces.
Added support for AIX aixterm terminal emulator.
If a .gitrc.TERM file cannot be found for a specific terminal, a generic configuration file (.gitrc.generic) is used.
Tested on a Bull computer running AIX.
Tested on some BSD 4.3 systems at FSF.
Tested on a Sun running SunOS 4.0.3 at FSF.
A better Sun port thanks to Johann Friedrich Heinrichmeyer.
A better Alpha port thanks to Dan Pop.
Added some emacs-like key bindings. There will be more in the next version.
Code cleanup.

Documentation

The GNU Interactive Tools HTML documentation has been automatically generated and will be loaded in a separate window.

Linux Software Map Entry

Begin3
Title:  GNU Interactive Tools
Versio  4.3.20
Entere  12MAR2000
Descri  GIT (GNU Interactive Tools) provides an extensible file
        system browser, an ASCII/hexadecimal file viewer, a process
        viewer/killer and other related utilities and shell scripts.
        GIT can be used to increase the speed and efficiency of
        copying and moving files and directories, invoking editors,
        compressing and uncompressing files, creating and expanding
        archives, compiling programs, sending mail and more.  GIT
        uses standard ANSI color sequences, if they are available.
Keywor  File browser, Process viewer, Hex viewer, Interactive Tools.
Author  tudor@hulubei.net (Tudor Hulubei)
        andrei@auctionwatch.ro (Andrei Pitis)
Mainta  tudor@hulubei.net (Tudor Hulubei)
Primar  ftp.gnu.org /pub/gnu/git
        415k git-4.3.20.tar.gz
Altern:
Origin  
Platfo  
Copyin: GPL
End

Snapshots

Here you can take a look at some images of GIT running on the

Linux console:
The rxvt terminal emulator:

Download

The latest official version of GNU Interactive Tools can always be found at ftp.gnu.org. Sites mirroring GNU Software also carry it.

Source and binary RPMs for RedHat Linux 7, 8 & 9: