Hey everyone! I'm a bit of a GitHub newbie and after some ups and downs, I finally managed to get an account set up. Now I'm running into a roadblock with my current project:
- I want to pull down a skeleton repository.
- I plan to add some text files and an executable script.
- After making my updates, I want to push the changes back to the repository.
The repository I'm working with is a public one here: https://github.com/NoAcadia3546/bash-conway-life/releases/tag/v0.1.0-alpha.
I'm currently in the directory ~/life on my desktop. When I try to pull the repo using the command:
```bash
git pull https://github.com/NoAcadia3546/bash-conway-life/releases/tag/v0.1.0-alpha
```
I get the error:
```
fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
```
I'm not sure what I'm missing. Did I not "finish" setting up the repo properly? Also, another question: should the README.md contain all documentation, or just a link to a file called "readme.txt"? Any help would be really appreciated!
3 Answers
It seems like you're trying to pull from a remote repository without having created a local repository to pull it into. To do that, you'll need to clone the repository instead. Use this command:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/NoAcadia3546/bash-conway-life
```
This will create a local copy of the repo on your machine that you can work with without starting from scratch.
As a fellow Linux user who just started with Git and GitHub, I can tell you that creating the repo through GitHub's web interface, then cloning it to your local machine is the way to go. You can keep your working copy and push any changes back up to GitHub. You'll get the hang of the basic commands soon enough! Just take it step by step.
By the way, about your README.md question, it really depends on your preference. Some people like to put all documentation in the README for easy access, while others prefer to keep it minimal and link to an external file for detailed info. Just make sure whatever you choose is clear for anyone looking at your project!
Thanks for the tip! I think I’ll keep it simple for now and just put everything in the README.