Part 1: Beginners Guide to Version Control (SVN/GIT)

What is Version Control?

Ever lost a file on you were close to finishing? Maybe the power went out and you had not saved it yet, or the hard-drive failed and your file was corrupted, or you accidentally saved over your working copy? Enter Version Control to save your day!

Think of version control as a file/folder backup system geared towards programmers/designers (although it CAN have wider uses).

There are many types of version control systems out there but I am going to focus on just a few — namely Subversion(SVN) and GIT.

I am by no means an expert or guru on either GIT or SVN but I am going to walk you through the benefits of each then show you how to get started using them.

Getting Started

GIT

GIT actually works better on Mac and Linux at the moment, but don’t let that stop you. There aren’t any issues really on Windows machines.

Lets install GIT.

Windows — Read this post to get GIT installed and up
Mac — Easy peasy. Read an install rundown here, or grab this installer
Linux — Easiest of the bunch.
- Debian folks (Ubuntu included) can just grab this package.
- Ubuntu, grab the Debian package above or from the command line:
```
apt-get install git-core
```
- Fedora users check go here or from the command line:
```
yum install git
```

SVN

Windows — Install this or get TortoiseSVN
Mac — Install a client like Versions , but as of OSx 10.5 you’ve already got SVN!
Linux — Still easy. Then again, I’m partial.
- Debian/Ubuntu — from the command line
```
apt-get install subversion
```
- Fedora — from the command line
```
yum install subversion
```