How to Install Git on FreeBSD

Version control systems have become some of the most fundamental and turning grounds for modern software development. Version control systems allow us to keep track of changes made to code over time, and collaborate with others on the same codebase without the risk of overwriting each other’s work.

By using a version control system, developers can create different branches of their code, experiment with new features or bug fixes, and merge their changes back into the main codebase when they’re ready.

Additionally, version control systems provide a history of all changes made to the code, allowing developers to revert to a previous version if necessary, and enabling them to easily identify who made a specific change and when.

Git is one of the most popular version control systems allowing developers to create repositories that be hosted locally or remotely to keep track of the changes made to the code.

In this tutorial, we will demonstrate how to install and configure the latest Git version on a FreeBSD system. We will attempt to cover various methods of installation.

Requirements

1. A FreeBSD System. We have tested this tutorial on FreeBSD version 14.0
2. A network connection
3. Administrative permissions to install and update software packages.

Method 1 - Installing Git on FreeBSD Using Packages

The most common method you can use to install Git on FreeBSD is to use the default package manager.

Start by updating the pkg repository index as shown in the command:

sudo pkg update -f

Next, install the git package with the command:

sudo pkg install git

You may need to press the Y key to confirm the package installation.

Boom, there you have it! A simple way to install Git on FreeBSD.

Method 2 - Installing Git Bia Ports

BSD ports refer to a collection of Makefiles and associated scripts that are used to automate the process of building, installing, and managing third-party software packages on BSD-based operating systems.

The ports collection includes a Makefile for each software package, which contains instructions for downloading the source code, configuring the build options, building the software, and installing it on the system.

Additionally, the ports system includes tools for managing dependencies, tracking installed packages, and upgrading packages to newer versions. The ports system is designed to provide a consistent and standardized way of installing and managing software packages on BSD-based systems, and is an integral part of the overall BSD ecosystem.

Ports are managed using the ports tree, located at /usr/ports, which contains information on each available piece of software for FreeBSD.

Step 1- Download Ports Tree

Start by downloading the ports tree on your FreeBSD system. This step can be initialized once. Hence, if you had installed any ports package, you can skip this step.

To download the ports, run the command:

sudo portsnap fetch extract

This should start the download process:

Fetching snapshot tag from server... done.
Fetching snapshot metadata... done.
Updating from Thu Apr  6 23:31:28 UTC 2023 to Fri Apr  7 23:31:22 UTC 2023.
Fetching 5 metadata patches... done.
Applying metadata patches... done.
Fetching 0 metadata files... done.
Fetching 78 patches.
(78/78) 100.00% done.
done.
Applying patches... done.
Fetching 0 new ports or files... done.

If you had run the command above, you can update the ports with the command:

sudo portsnap fetch update

Next, move to the devel/git directory in the ports tree with the cd command as:

cd /usr/ports/devel/git

Finally, build Git using the make command. Ensure to include the BATCH="yes" parameter as this will allow Git port to build and install quietly without the need for prompts.

sudo make install clean BATCH="yes"

And there you have it, you have successfully installed Git on FreeBSD using portsnap.

Conclusion

In this post, you learned two main ways of installing Git on a FreeBSD system. We hope you enjoyed this post. If you’d like to see more of these, you can subscribe and leave us a comment down below.

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