A pretty and feature rich Git GUI for Linux

Question

I was checking out for a rich GUI for Git on Linux. As of late, I have started using it a lot and find that even though command-line is very useful, I would still want a GUI at my disposal since I am not still very much aware with the advanced features.

I came across this question on Stack Overflow before, but I still have to ask this question again, as that question doesn't have my answer

• I have used git-cola and gitk, but they look half-baked and gitk looks like I am working on some other desktop environment. All the features I require in gitGUI is not in either of them.

• I tried giggle, but it is more useful for watching diffs

• I tried QGit, but it is not fully complete.

Now let me tell how I want a foo-Git-GUI to look like:

• You can have a look at Bzr Explorer. It is highly usable and has many more features than many of the above mentioned GUIs

Is there any Git GUI which looks like the above example I posted above?

Solution 1

I find myself using mainly gitg in combination with the command line for more complicated tasks.

Source repository: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gitg.

Recently, a new version 0.3.2 has been released, which is a rewrite using Vala. It's not yet feature-complete compared to the old 0.2 series, but the refactor is expected to speed up future development.

Also, there are normally PPAS on Launchpad which contain a more up-to-date version than the standard repository.

Solution 2

Smartgit seems to be pretty feature rich. It allows committing, rebasing, visualizing branch history, etc. It's not open source, but it is free to use for non-commercial projects.

I installed it by downloading from the site, untarring and running bin/smartgit.sh. There are also PPAs like this one that have it.

GitKraken, which is a Node.js/Electron based client has also entered into the foray with both .deb and stand-alone binaries. Here are screenshots from its announcement.

Solution 3

I doubt you're going to find what you want if you haven't already. Linux users tend to be quite happy using CLIs so there's not nearly so strong a drive for a huge GUI.

That said, you've somehow missed looking at git-gui. git-gui and gitk are the two that are actually part of the git suite, and they're designed to complement each other - gitk for looking at history and diffs, git-gui for making commits, merging, fetching, pushing...

Solution 4

Check EGit, the Git plugin for Eclipse. It's out of incubation since June 2011. You can see how it looks in the user guide. Here are a few screenshots to wet your appetite:

• New files:

• Commit Window:

• History View:

Solution 5

I just started running GitExtensions on Mono, and it seems to work pretty well so far (running Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) here).

I had to install some libraries to get the compiled ZIP package to run:

• libmono-winforms2.0-cil for System.Windows.Forms

• libmono-system-ldap2.0-cil for System.DirectoryServices

  Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a packaged version for Ubuntu.

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Comments

[Manish Sinha]

Thanks Jefromi, I can understand that Linux users are happy with cli, but still I find that good GUIs are available for Bazaar but not for GIT. This is why I asked the question

[Manish Sinha]

OTOH git-cola is just too confusing. It may be good, but just too complicated to use. Compare it against Bzr Explorer and see.

[Manish Sinha]

I can understand that the graphical nature is invaluable, but still needed to lower the entry level barrier.

[Cascabel]

I didn't say anything about git cola.

[andyczerwonka]

although it looks good, unfortunately it does almost nothing. :-(

[Christoph]

I wouldn't exactly call staging, line-based staging, committing, branching, tagging, cherry-picking, patching, browsing, showing diffs, etc... "almost nothing". ;-) - At least for me, personally, it covers about 80% of what I typically do in a repo.

[andyczerwonka]

fair enough... I rephrase... "it's useful for local work, but not for remote collaboration"

[Борис Чиликин]

Does this project have a website? Looks cool, but hard to find info.

[Christoph]

Hm, the homepage seems to be currently offline. I added a link to the source repository, the only meaningful page I could find (apart from an old github page)

[Smandoli]

I can't figure out how to launch git-gui. Not in Linux' menu, and terminal "git-gui" does nothing, and "whereis git-gui" shows me a location or two but no suggestions.

[Cascabel]

@Smandoli It's a git command: git gui

[Smandoli]

Oh! Thanks! (A) how obvious. (B) Why don't they SAY so?!

[Борис Чиликин]

Gitg sure looks nice, but looks like it's a dead project.

[Christoph]

@Travis: Well there's not much public activity, but if you check the git log, there is still work happening: git.gnome.org/browse/gitg/log

[Борис Чиликин]

Ahh, good to know. Thanks @Christoph , just installed it with apt-get install gitg and trying it out.

[Christoph]

@TravisR: just FYI, there's PPAs on Launchpad with a more up-to-date version (2.5.0), e.g. launchpad.net/~weits666/+archive/ppa launchpad.net/~xperimental/+archive/ppa if you want to try that.

[Admin]

Wow, nice. This looks like a port of GitX from OS X, my favourite Git frontend. Wish the font would be smaller. Aww, it doesn't support pipe like GItX (git diff | gitx) for a very nice readable diff.

[Alp]

this is by far the most useful git gui i have ever found. thank you!

[boh]

upvoted, I love this. Just that it's not open source, but who care, sublime is not open source either! I prefer CLI most of the time, just except for git/hg. And the GUI of company driven apps are usually better.

[caligari]

The best option if you are using Eclipse IDE because all is integrated. Pretty and useful.

[Hubro]

Holy crap! I never thought I'd see a Git GUI of this caliber on Linux!

[1nfiniti]

TBH, for a GUI gitg leaves a lot to be desired .. the 80% Christoph mentions is really pushing it, and comes with bad functionality & user experience. Compared to Source Tree it's really not up to par... And yet I've found nothing on *nix based systems that is.

[Jonathan Hult]

A free Git GUI for non-commercial use and discounted pricing for teams. gitkraken.com/pro

[Efreeto]

I prefer Smartgit to GitKraken because GitKraken required me to do a login to either github or gitkraken. All I wanted was a pretty git-diff!

[matth]

github.com/gitextensions/gitextensions/wiki/…