4.2. A Brief Introduction to FOSS Source Control Management Tools

The FOSS world has developed many excellent SCMs to choose from. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, and choosing which SCM to use for a new project is always a popular subject for debate.

You may want to start your own project someday, and you will have to choose an SCM. Right now, though, you will be working with existing projects, which means the SCM has been chosen for you. The following five SCMs are very popular, and you're likely to see them often:

Subversion (svn)
Concurrent Version System (cvs)
Mercurial (hg)
Git (git)
Bazaar (bzr)

Eventually you may use all of these SCMs, or a different SCM entirely. Each SCM has some unique characteristics -- but most basic version control concepts are common to all SCMs.

Since these concepts are new, the focus will be on learning one SCM: Subversion.

4.2.1. Exercise - Install Subversion on Your System

Install Subversion on your system. Subversion clients exists for all platforms; search the Internet for instructions. Ask your classmates, or ask on IRC, if you need help.