Installing git on OS X 10.6.8

Today, I set out to install git on my work computer; I figured that it would be helpful, in addition to providing version control, to have my work easily accessible on my laptop. I asked someone with admin privileges to just let me install git 2.7.1 using the Mac OS X installer, but it turns out that Snow Leopard is just too old, and not supported (for anyone who might have the Illegal instruction error). As someone who primarily uses Windows, I really have no feel for the different versions of OS X and how old everything is, so that didn’t help.

I didn’t want to bother my coworker, so I set out to just build git from source. The version that works is git 1.8.4.2, according to the Internet. Maybe a newer version works, too, but I’ve already spent too much time on this. On my first attempt, I actually installed 1.6.4.2, following the instructions here.

Anyhow, one thing that really messed me up was that I kept forgetting to run the configure script. I thought that all the ‘configuration’ was done in the make file, but I guess I was wrong. In any case, you can install git locally (no admin privileges ) like this:

tar xzvf git-1.8.4.2.tar.bz2
cd git-1.8.4.2
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make
make install
alias git='$HOME/local/bin/git'