Hands on with Three Git TUI Clients
Contents
If you are not accustomed to typing git commands on the command line, there are also some TUI clients for easing the use of git.
lazygit
lazygit is a git tui client written in go. To install it on Linux:
wget https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/releases/download/v0.28.2/lazygit_0.28.2_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz
mkdir -p $HOME/tools/lazygit
tar --directory=$HOME/tools/lazygit -xvf lazygit_0.28.2_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz
Add it to PATH:
export PATH=$HOME/tools/lazygit:$PATH
Lazygit comes with rich features and extensive key bindings.
gitui
gitui is a similar git tui written in rust, which boasts excellent performance against other git tui clients. Install it on Linux:
wget https://github.com/extrawurst/gitui/releases/download/v0.16.2/gitui-linux-musl.tar.gz
mkdir -p $HOME/local/bin
tar --directory=$HOME/local/bin -xvf gitui-linux-musl.tar.gz
export PATH=$HOME/loca/bin:$PATH
gitui also has rich features. One issue to note is that it does not support
using j
and k
to select next and previous item, which is a bit clusmy for
Vim users like me.
tig
tig is tiny tools written in C, which provides a git tui with basic features. We can install it from source:
wget https://github.com/jonas/tig/releases/download/tig-2.5.4/tig-2.5.4.tar.gz
tar xvf tig-2.5.4.tar.gz
cd tig-2.5.4
./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
make -j 8 && make install
tig will be installed under $HOME/local/bin
.
Tig is tiny and quite powerful and suitable for simple use cases.