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I am a very new bie to Git and coming from a TFS background and trying to get on speed with Github. while reading about it, what I learnt is the following:- Github is a web based service for Hosting Git repos. Git is Local Version Control System,

Q1: How could Git track the changes on a local machine without server?

Git and GitHub are not tightly coupled, meaning Git need not be necessarily using Github

The Git I installed was downloaded from here I also found Github for Windows client here So my Question boils to

Q2:How the two client installers above are different and when to use which one?
Programmerzzz
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    Possible duplicate of [Understanding the basics of Git and GitHub](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11816424/understanding-the-basics-of-git-and-github) – Jeen Broekstra Feb 09 '16 at 04:48
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    Git is not tightly coupled to a host for the very reason of allowing users to develop without being tied down. The Git you install is not really related to any client tool you use. So your question is moot because you only listed GitHub for Windows without actually giving a second client (e.g. SourceSafe). – Tim Biegeleisen Feb 09 '16 at 04:49
  • the second client I downloaded is at `git-scm.com/download` My question is, if they are both same, why two installers were given. May be I am wrong, but trying to clear my confusion – Programmerzzz Feb 09 '16 at 04:56

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A1: Your git repo can set up one, or more "remote" repositories it can "push" changes to. GitHub is a source of such remote repositories. But you could set up free repositories at many services (like Visual Studio Team Services, or BitBucket)

When you "clone" a repo from somewhere, all you are doing is making a local repo and setting the remote repo of name "origin" to wherever you happen to be hosting it.

Think of it like this: Imagine the most popular Web hosting company was called "PhpHub" - all the sites on PhpHub use php, but you can host php anywhere. That's the relationship to git/github.

A2: There are many different git clients. At their root, they use the git protocols and the command line interactions. But there are many different competing tools.

GitHub makes their own, which is really kind of awful and not very good at helping you understand git or responding to errors. Most devs use command line, because it is the way git was meant to be used. Many of the commands simply don't translate well in a GUI format.

However, if you need a GUI to get started or help visualize, I'd recommend looking into "SourceTree". At least, it is my favorite.

Tobiah Zarlez
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  • explained well, could u pls elaborate on `When you "clone" a repo from somewhere, all you are doing is making a local repo and setting the remote repo of name "origin" to wherever you happen to be hosting it.` I didn't get that part – Programmerzzz Feb 09 '16 at 05:06
  • When you download a repository from somewhere, you (usually automatically in set up) clone it on your machine. That is to say, you have a brand new git repo that you can do whatever you want to. Then, after you have committed some changes, you can do a "git push" command. This command looks for "remote" repositories your repo is linked to, and tells them about all the commits/changes you have made. A more advanced git trick is you can have multiple remote repos, or change which remote repo you push to at a later time. For a new user, don't worry about it, you will always push to origin – Tobiah Zarlez Feb 09 '16 at 06:48