Armadillo Zoo: CVS information

GNU Concurrent Versions System

This document will never be finished. Changes will be made. Any comments, suggestions, or best yet, contributions are very welcome.

What's new?

What's here

Since there are a number of CVS users out there, and a number of different CVS versions (ports to other operating systems, remote CVS implementations, etc), and since the CVS repository at Thinking Machines hasn't been updated since David Grubbs left TMC, here is a new (and hopefully growing) collection of CVS related facts (and factoids).

Another place to check for CVS information is Pascal Molli's site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Please, before going any further, make sure you have checked the Frequently Asked Questions list, since it's quite possible that your question has already been answered. Yes, it's flat text, but that will change sometime soon, I hope.

Now, available in gzipped form as well: from my cache or the master site.

If you're trying to build on Irix 5 or OSF/1, please see the information about the 1.4 alpha release.

Where can I find....

...more documentation?
Per Cederqvist, of Signum Support, has written an excellent manual about CVS. It's not fully complete, but it is more than enough for anyone to get started with.

Note that this manual is also included in the forthcoming 1.4 release, in slightly modified form (mainly updates to 1.4). The online version here is taken from the 1.4 sources, not the version from Per.

...the latest official release?
The latest official release of CVS is 1.3, available from all of the standard GNU FTP sites. Some of the more common ones include:
* Free Software Foundation
This is the canonical location for all GNU software. You can find many other useful programs here as well, such as GCC, GDB, and RCS.
* DEC's archive machine
This is probably the best machine for anyone in the SF Bay Area, and for most people on the West Coast. Networkologically, this is a well connected machine, and seems to always be available, when other machines are saturated.

...something newer than 1.3?
Well, an official 1.4 release is not yet available. However, alpha releases are now ftp'able from the alpha test site. The latest release is 1.4A2.

1.4A2 is quite stable, and if you are just getting started with CVS, I'd suggest using it instead of 1.3, since it's easier to install and has better documentation.

...the supporting cast?
In addition to CVS itself, you'll need some more software in order to get anywhere at all. There are also some packages which. although not required, certainly do make life much simpler.

RCS
RCS (Revision Control System) is the underlying base of CVS. All of the actual file change information is kept using RCS mechanisms.

CVS requires RCS v4 or later, although RCS5 is highly recommended. Please note that the RCS that HP ships with their systems is RCS v3, and is not compatible with CVS.

You can find RCS at any GNU site, such as prep.ai.mit.edu.

I've been using v5.6.7.4-beta for several months now without any apparent problem.

diff
To properly handle binary files, you need a diff program that handles them correctly. GNU diff will do this. It also supports the unidiff format that many people find easier to read than context diffs.

diff, as well as other similar programs, are part of the diffutils package, also available on prep.ai.mit.edu.

patch
Used mainly to move code fragments around, often to update a file from one versio to another, patch is one of the most useful tools in existence (right behind Swiss Army knives, imnsho). If you ever need to use the output of diff, use patch instead of applying the changes by hand.

Also available from prep.ai.mit.edu.

...support for remote users?
There are a couple of CVS implementations that support remote users (ones without shared filesystems).

* Cyclic Software
A release of CVS that uses a peer-to-peer direct network connection is available for anonymous ftp. A mini-FAQ document is also available.
* SLAC
RCVS is a remote CVS based on rdist, and is also available for anonymous ftp. A README file is provided to help people get started, as well as more complete documentation. Hopefully a web page will be available soon.

...a GUI front end?
There are a couple of Tcl/Tk based front ends for CVS.

* tkCVS
This is the most recent of the two (as far as I know), having been announced in mid-February. It's available from the Tcl/Tk contributed code archive, with a tar file and a README file.
* GIC
This is the Graphical Interface to CVS. Two versions are available, 1.1 and 1.2b1.

If you know of any other GUI front ends, please let me know.

...a version for my favorite operating system?
There should be a listing of the various ports and CVS extensions that are available, but I don't have a complete list of these available. Some of the items that I'd like additional information on are:

* DOS and OS/2
According to Erik van Linstee (linstee@liberator.et.tudelft.nl), an OS/2 port of CVS is available from Walnut Creek CDROM's public ftp site. This version contains executables for DOS as well as OS/2.
* Windows NT
CVS is among the list of GNU binaries and sources available from the UTexas Windows NT archive. I haven't tried this. If you know of a standalone CVS distribution, or have experience with this port, please let me know.
* VMS
??? (information requested)
* VM
??? (information requested)
* NetWare
??? (information requested)

...even more information?
If something should be on this list and isn't, please let me know.

Or ask...

The info-cvs mailing list

The info-cvs mailing list is an occasionally lively, yet always informative forum for discussion about CVS. Questions ranging from the easiest how-do-I-get-started (but not ones in the FAQ list, you did read the FAQ first, right?) to the arcane why-does-this-subcommand-do-this-in-this-precise-manner sorts.

Archives of the list are now available, from May 1992 to the present.

To send mail to the list, use info-cvs@prep.ai.mit.edu.

For administrivia (being added or removed from the list), please send mail to info-cvs-request@prep.ai.mit.edu instead. Sending these requests to the list as a whole will not get it done any sooner, but will annoy several hundred people in the process.

What else would you like to see here?

Please let me know what other sorts of things you'd like to see mentioned here. Sending mail to zoo@armadillo.com is probably the best way to do this.
last modified: 21-Feb-1995 zoo@armadillo.com (david d `zoo' zuhn)