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I installed msysgit on my Windows 7 laptop so I could use TortoiseGIT on it.

At first I just installed the msysgit normally (Full Installer) and the TortoiseGIT. In tortoiseGIT configurations I couldn't set it up to work properly because I couldn't finde the git.exe file.

After some search I found out that I needed to run the initialize.sh script on the msysgit console mode. So i finally got the git.exe under bin folder in the msysgit.

The msysgit folder is something around 1.46 GB, and I realized that tis process downloaded the entire git source code. In linux, the git-core debian package is much smaller and the process is much quickier.

I was wondering, is that really it? It's really this big?

Some info on versioning:

msysgit: 1.7.8-preview20111206 git: 1.7.8 tortoiseGIT:

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2 Answers 2

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My MSysGit installation directory is under 80MB and I've put a bunch of additional tools in there. I suspect you've downloaded the development package (for working on MSysGit itself) rather than the package for if you just want to use git, which is Git For Windows.

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I was suspicious about that big size. Thanks, I'll look for the git for windows. –  rockskull Feb 13 '12 at 16:10

Full Installer is the whole source code for (Linux) git, and the Windows git variant, and the compilers, and everything for the Msys environment, etc. My V1.7.8 (full install) directory is 1.48 GB, while the Git for Windows C:\Program Files\ executables are just 205 MB (size on disc).

Like Barend said, get the Git for Windows for regular work, and have the Full Install to satisfy your inquisitiveness about what's really going on ;-) It needs to be eaten like a melon though, one chunk at a time.

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