GitHub And Cloning A "Beta-Test" Version Of Software

[ChAoS]

I'm interested in running this software on one of my RPis:

https://github.com/notandy/ympd

I've created an account on GitHub and managed to download (via the "download ZIP" link), compile and run the code on my RPi. The thing is, other people are enhancing the code and I'd like to be able to clone a "beta test" version of the software - including all the mods made by others - and play with it.

I'm *not* interested in contributing code; I merely want to be able to test it and post bug reports. (I *did* report a bug which was fixed by a user, but I've no idea how to incorporate changes into what I have on my local disk.)

Please note that I'm not interested in all the bells and whistles of Git - I just want a simple way of acquiring the latest (bleeding-edge) version of the software without waiting for the author to pull and commit the changes.

Can anyone suggest a "lazy-man's" approach to this?

Thanks.

Regards,

Mark.

[Heater]

There is no "lazy mans" way to do this.

You can clone the latest version of a project to your local machine, build and use that. You don't even need to be registered with github to do that.

Note that the project may have different branches, release, development, etc be sure to use the one you want.

Then, someone else may already have forked that original code into their own github repo and fixed bugs or made enhancements to it. Fine clone that repo instead of the main project and use that.

But then, what if ten people have forked the repo and all those ten people have fixed different bugs and added different features? Which one of those forks do you want to use? Depends on what bug fixes and features are important to you I guess.

So, if you want different bug fixes and features from multiple places you have a problem. You at least have to get to know how to use git and you probably need to know how the code works so that you can mix and match code from here and there to get what you want.

In short, you pretty much have to become a developer to do what your want. Unless you are lucky and someone is already maintaining a a fork that is suitable for you. You just have to find it.

[ChAoS]

Thanks for your reply.

Indeed, the problem is that several people *are* fixing bugs and I'd like to try the fixes out. (One of 'em fixed a bug that I reported and I downloaded the repo not realising that the fixes hadn't been "pulled". I felt a bit of a fool when I reported that the fixes didn't work...)

I'll just have to wait until the fixes are committed. I don't fancy faffing with the forks - I managed to build and run the master on the Pi and that's enough "development" for me.

Again, thanks for spending the time to reply.

Regards,

Mark.

[jamesh]

In general, there will be a 'mainline' repository, that accepts all the changes from elsewhere. That's the one you will want to use as will have all the latest accepted changes

Clone that repo.

You can also set various 'upstream' repos to link from yours so you can grab changes from other repos if you need them.

This is fairly standard git usage (although git is a fairly difficult system to get to grips with at first).

[ChAoS]

In general, there will be a 'mainline' repository, that accepts all the changes from elsewhere. That's the one you will want to use as will have all the latest accepted changes

Clone that repo.

Done that. The trouble is that people are adding fixes and enhancements that I'd like but they aren't being pulled.

You can also set various 'upstream' repos to link from yours so you can grab changes from other repos if you need them.

This is the bit that I have to get to grips with. These days, though, the "fire" to fiddle with things has long gone. Having said that, I *did* grab some changes today and to a "hand merge" as it were. So far, it all works as I'd like.

This is fairly standard git usage (although git is a fairly difficult system to get to grips with at first).

Yeah, I'll have to do some more faffing. I don't have the patience that I used to - these days, I'm quite happy to find bugs, report them and then sit back while *others* fix 'em.

Thanks for your reply.

Regards,

Mark.