Have you been told to “clone the repo and build it,” and don’t know what to do next? We’ll show you how to get that program on GitHub running on Linux, even if you’re a beginner.
The instructions that make up a computer program are written, edited, and saved in text files. A program called a compiler then processes these files. This produces the executable version of the program. The text files of instructions are called the source code. The version of the program that can actually run on a computer is called the binary or the executable.
That’s a simplified version of events, but it paints a correct—if generalized—picture. In practice, you’ll find all sorts of variations on that model. Sometimes, other programs generate the text files. Other times, the source code runs inside an interpreter and doesn’t need to be compiled, and so on.
However, the one universal truth across all software projects is this: the source code files are the crown jewels, and they need to be looked after just as carefully.
Version Control Programs
All of the source code files within a project are called the codebase. Large projects often have many developers working on the codebase. Every code change must be tracked and identifiable. If required, the changes must be reversible. If different developers make changes to the same source code file, their edits must be merged.
It’s not surprising, then, that software programs called version control systems exist to make the management of changes to the codebase easier. Version control systems hold all previous versions of each file in the codebase, and every change is recorded, commented on, and tracked.
A Little Thing Called Git
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, developed a version control program called Git to administer the Linux kernel codebase. It’s now the world’s most widely adopted version control software. There are millions of people using it—literally.
With Git, a project’s codebase is stored in repositories. In addition to the local repositories that sit on developer’s computers and, perhaps, on a central server on the network, it’s a good practice to have an off-site, or remote, repository.
And that’s where GitHub comes in.
