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Hello all,

First of all, let me say Thank You! for msysGit. I have previously used
git under cygwin on Windows, but mingw is *much* faster and having a
working git-gui rocks.

That being said, I was curious to know whether or not there was any
interest in a Portable edition of msysgit. I've already gotten a
prototype working with a quick batch script:

rem git-gui.bat
set HOMEDRIVE=%CD:~0,2%
set HOMEPATH=\
start PortableApps\Git\bin\wish PortableApps\Git\bin\git-gui

or

rem git-bash.bat
set HOMEDRIVE=%CD:~0,2%
set HOMEPATH=\
start PortableApps\Git\bin\bash.exe -login -i

Obviously, all that's necessary is to install msysgit into the
PortableApps\Git directory on your USB key. Then double-click the batch
scripts and watch the magic happen! Setting HOMEDRIVE/HOMEPATH ensures
that git configuration files get written to the USB key root directory;
with some modification you can make it be written anywhere you please.

It might be a good idea to offer the option to install Git portably.

That all being said, there are a number of notable difficulties when
working with git portably.

1. Running git-gui like this bypasses the repository selection screen if
this script or any script like it is inside a Git working copy (my usb
key, for example). I presently don't know how to force git-gui to load
the selection screen. The only workaround I can think of is this:

set USBDRIVE=%CD%
cd /D %SystemDrive%

Which feels pretty nasty, but works.

2. git-gui seems to pick up strange *.tmp files in the root of my USB
key. This only seems to happen on some systems, and needs more
investigation. These temporary files are not visible via bash or Windows
Explorer.

3. This has been mentioned before, but SSH is pretty broken on git-gui,
and with a portable system this is a huge show-stopper. It is impossible
to do an SSH ppk push without resorting to bash, and even then, it's
difficult to use PuTTY and Pageant via GIT_SSH due to a port flag
incompatibility (-p and -P; I will be filing a bug for this shortly).
Since regularly pushing is essential to good backups, esp. on a USB key,
I hope this interface becomes much simpler to use.

(As an added note, it took me a while to figure out that PuTTY private
keys don't work with OpenSSH. You need to use puttygen to convert them
to the OpenSSH format, before using ssh-add on them. ssh-add will not
give you any errors if you try to import the wrong format).

Once again, thanks! msysgit is a treat to use, and I hope to see it
become the dominant way to use git on Windows.

Cheers,
Edward

P.S. Please get the exit code fix release ASAP! Thanks!

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 Edward Z. Yang                        GnuPG: 0x869C48DA
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