Installation and Setup

Overview

This unit guides you through installing Git, creating a GitHub account, and installing GitHub Desktop.

Goals

• Install Git on your system.
• Set up a GitHub account.
• Install and configure GitHub Desktop.

Reading

Install Git

Install Git on your computer. Go to the Git website and follow the instructions. You can accept the default options during installation. It is likely that you will need administrator rights to be able to install Git.

Set up GitHub

Go to the GitHub website and create an account. The email you use should be one you use regularly, ideally one that is your permanent email address. This will be the email address to which GitHub sends notifications. Next, choose a user name and password to finish setting up your account.

GitHub is widely used professionally. You might use it for your career and you might want to allow other people to see your GitHub presence. You should therefore use a future-proof, professional user name for your GitHub account. Your name is always a good idea.

Since you are doing a lot of GitHub work out in the open, it is a good idea to associate a professional image with your profile. This also makes it easier for others to recognize that it’s you who when they are for instance trying to invite as a collaborator. You can do so by going to your profile and changing the image. You can also add further information to your profile, such as a short bio, your location, and a link to your website or blog.

GitHub developer pack

If you are a student, you can get a lot of nice free goodies through the GitHub student developer pack. You will get GitHub Pro for free, which gives you access to the GitHub Copilot AI assistant and private repositories. Many other perks are also included. If you are eligible, I highly recommend signing up for the student developer pack.

Install GitHub Desktop

GitHub Desktop is a free graphical client made by the GitHub folks that makes it fairly easy to use Git/GitHub without the command line. Download GitHub Desktop and install it. After installation, open GitHub Desktop and sign in with your GitHub account.

Summary

You installed Git, created a GitHub account and installed and set up GitHub Desktop.

Further Resources

• The software carpentry has a course on Git/GitHub which among other things provides some more install/setup instructions.

Test yourself

Where should you install Git from?

The GitHub Desktop appThe GitHub Docs websiteThe official Git website at git-scm.comThe R package repository on CRAN

Git is installed from the official Git website at git-scm.com.

• False
• False
• True
• False

Why should you choose a professional, future-proof GitHub username?

GitHub requires it for student accounts onlyIt makes your local Git installation fasterIt is needed to access private repositoriesGitHub is used professionally and your profile is publicly visible

Your GitHub profile can be part of your professional presence, so choose a solid, public-facing username.

• False
• False
• False
• True

What is GitHub Desktop used for?

Hosting repositories in the cloudA graphical client to work with Git and GitHubWriting and running R codeAutomatically syncing files without commits

GitHub Desktop is a graphical client that lets you commit, pull, and push without the command line.

• False
• True
• False
• False

Practice

• Make sure you implemented all the steps described above and have Git, GitHub account, and GitHub Desktop set up and ready to go.