cgit

cgit is an open source and free web-based software implemented in C and designed from the ground up to provide users with a fast and easy-to-use interface for the git scm tool. Its best feature is the ability to decrease server io-pressure, simply by using a built-in cache.

The application has been engineered in such a way that it is capable of integrating with the Gitosis and Gitolite systems. It is available in the default software repositories of many popular GNU/Linux operating systems and fully compatible with the latest version of Git.

Getting started with cgit

In order to install and run cgit you will first need to have a working server on your system, such as Apache. However, cgit supports many server software, including (but not limited to) Lighttpd and Nginx.

Grab the latest version of the software from Softoware, where it is distributed as a tar archive, and save it on your computer. Use the default archive manager to extract the contents of the archive and open a terminal emulator to navigate to the location of the extracted archive files, using the ‘cd’ command.

Execute the ‘make’ command to compile the source code of the application and then use the ‘make install’ command, as root or with sudo, to install the software system wide and make it available to all users on your machine.

Under the hood and supported OSes

Looking under the hood of cgit, we can immediately notice that the program is written entirely in the C programming language. It has been successfully tested with a wide variety of GNU/Linux distributions, including Arch Linux, Slackware, Gentoo, openSUSE, Debian, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Both 32-bit and 64-hit hardware architectures are supported at this time.