GitHub is a hosting platform for git repositories. It makes it easier to collaborate on, and share, source code of open source projects. There are other similar services:
- GitLab
- BitBucket
- Gitea
- Many More
Specific instructions on how to aquire project files are often given
by project maintainers in a file called README(sometimes README.md, README.txt, etc.).
Consult this for installation instructions.
The usual ways of downloading source code from GitHub are downloading a compressed archive, and cloning the git repository.
On many Unix systems, git is pre-installed. If not, install git to be able to clone. If on a modern Windows operating system, you can install git for windows: gitforwindows.org.
An example on cloning git projects can be seen below (The same command works for both windows and unix systems).
git clone https://github.com/el-wumbus/qinfoAn example on downloaind a ZIP archive of a github repo
curl -Lo qinfo.zip https://github.com/El-Wumbus/qinfo/archive/refs/heads/Master.zip# Powershell & CMD
curl.exe -L -o "https://github.com/El-Wumbus/qinfo/archive/refs/heads/Master.zip"Downloading of a ZIP archive can be acomplished through the GitHub website.
GitHub has a feature called releases. A project may not always use releases, those that do will have the following present:
You can click on the releases button to see all releases, it woll look something like the following:
Releases can have attached files that may be downloaded through the GitHub web interface.