Git has changed the face of open source collaboration in significant fashion and is easily installable on IBM i.

In 2012, MC Press author Thomas Snyder produced two pieces on Git describing what it is and how to install it. Instead of digressing into the many advantages of Git, this article will focus on how it can be obtained and installed on IBM i.

In Snyder's articles, the focus was Git on the desktop. I believe a change is happening where we'll incrementally see the desktop fade. Instead, the server will again become king. Remember the 3270 dumb terminals? Remember how when a terminal broke (rare) it was simply a matter of getting another and continuing your SEU coding? No data was lost because it was all on the server. Well, the same is now becoming true with coding in the browser. You don't need to install anything on your desktop. If you're coding in the browser, that inherently means the code is on the server. If your code is on the server, then that's where the source change management (SCM) happens. That's why it's important to have Git available on IBM i. IBM i can perform two roles: the client (for development) and the server (for deployment). And yes, this means coding location has gone full circle; first on the server, then on the desktop, and now back to the server.

If you need a refresher or introduction to Git and how it can be used to do source change management, check out the "Git Guide" from Roger Dudler, which is simple and to the point.

Git on IBM i runs in the PASE environment, essentially a full AIX runtime using IBM i as its kernel. This means we can run many AIX tools and applications unchanged on IBM i. There's a gentleman named Michael Perzl who has ported a great deal of open source for AIX. His efforts are available via perzl.org/aix. He distributes the ported tools in the rpm format, a package manager that was originally developed by RedHat and is a way to package up an application and its files.

Then we have an IBMer named Tony Cairns who publishes very useful content on the youngiprofessionals.com site. In particular, there's the Open Source Binaries page that includes a section named "Perzl RPMs (newer)." This article will describe in detail how to use Tony's scripts to install Git on IBM i. To simplify things, I've put the necessary files in perzl_download.tar at the following URL:

https://bitbucket.org/litmis/ibmi/src.

First things first: FTP perzl_download.tar into IFS directory /QOpenSys/download. Create the download directory using command mkdir if it doesn't yet exist.

Now CALL QP2TERM from 5250. Or SSH into your machine to get into the PASE shell and run the following commands to extract the perzl_download.tar contents into /QOpenSys/download.

$ cd /QOpenSys/download

$ tar -xvf perzl_download.tar

Next we need to initialize and set up your IBM i by running the setup.sh shell script. You can open it and view the contents if you'd like as it is a simple text file. The primary purpose of setup.sh is to restore the rpm binary and install the wget rpm. Rpm is the package manager necessary to install rpm files from perzl.org and wget is an HTTP client used to retrieve the rpm files.

$ ./setup.sh

Next we have the wwwperzl.sh shell script, and below we show how to invoke it. Note we are passing a single parameter of "help" to it. This will return back to us how to use the script.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh help

customer:

--------------

wwwperzl.sh aix53|aix61 option [scan]

required:

aix53|aix61

option

help         - help customer

admin         - admin help, PASE releases, perzl site copy functions, etc.

fix           - fix freeware/lib/libiconv.a (post rpm)

list   [scan] - list possible downloads

count [scan] - count list possible downloads

wget1 [scan] - wget from perzl

wget   [scan] - wget plus depends from perzl

wgetv [scan] - wget plus depends from perzl (view action only)

rpm1   [scan] - rpm install local (post wget)

rpm   [scan] - rpm install plus depends (post wget)

rpmv   [scan] - rpm install plus depends (view action only)

               (*)[scan] - wild card rpm scan [gcc*]

pase->aix release:

--------------

V5R3 -> aix52

V5R4 -> aix53

V6R1 -> aix53

V7R1 -> aix61

Given that information, we attempt to list possible downloads for Git with the following command. Note I am on a V7.2 IBM i machine, so I put aix61 for the AIX version.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh aix61 list git

git-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-arch-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-cvs-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-daemon-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-email-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-gui-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

git-svn-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitk-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.0.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.1.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.1.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.3.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.3.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.4.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.4.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.4.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.5.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

gitweb-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

Wow, that's a large list of Git-related tooling! In this case, we're interested in the latest version of the top entry—namely, git-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps. After doing an initial list, I always like to filter it down to the point of getting a single returned entry, as shown below.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh aix61 list git-1.8.5.4

git-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.deps

As we can see, it has returned a single file with .deps as its extension. This is a dependency file used to declare what other tools need to be also downloaded and installed in order for Git to work on IBM i. We can learn what needs to be downloaded by changing from the "list" option to "wgetv." The "v" stands for view. This is essentially telling us what rpm files need to be downloaded for Git to work.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh aix61 wgetv git-1.8.5.4

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/bash/bash-4.2-12.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/bzip2/bzip2-1.0.5-3.aix5.3.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/curl/curl-7.27.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/bash/bash-4.2-10.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gdbm/gdbm-1.10-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gettext/gettext-0.10.40-8.aix5.2.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/info/info-4.13a-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gcc/libgcc-4.7.2-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libiconv/libiconv-1.14-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libidn/libidn-1.25-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libssh2/libssh2-1.4.2-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/openssl/openssl-1.0.1c-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/perl/perl-5.8.8-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/zlib/zlib-1.2.3-4.aix5.2.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/openldap/openldap-2.4.23-0.3.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/db4/db4-4.7.25-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/expat/expat-2.1.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/fontconfig/fontconfig-2.10.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/freetype2/freetype2-2.5.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/freetype2/freetype2-2.5.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libpng/libpng-1.6.7-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gmp/gmp-5.1.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gcc/libgcc-4.8.2-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gcc/libstdc++-4.8.2-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/info/info-5.1-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/less/less-458-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libffi/libffi-3.0.13-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libidn/libidn-1.28-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/info/info-5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libpng/libpng-1.6.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libssh2/libssh2-1.4.3-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gcc/libgcc-4.8.1-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/openssl/openssl-1.0.1e-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libXft/libXft-2.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/fontconfig/fontconfig-2.8.0-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/freetype2/freetype2-2.4.10-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libXrender/libXrender-0.9.7-2.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/libXrender/libXrender-0.9.8-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/openssl/openssl-1.0.1f-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/popt/popt-1.7-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/python/python-2.6.8-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/gmp/gmp-5.0.5-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/python/python-libs-2.6.8-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/readline/readline-6.2-4.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/sqlite/sqlite-3.7.17-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/tcl/tcl-8.5.14-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/tk/tk-8.5.14-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/readline/readline-6.2-5.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/rsync/rsync-3.1.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/sqlite/sqlite-3.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/tcl/tcl-8.5.15-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/tk/tk-8.5.15-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

wget http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/git/git-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

Next we invoke the "wget" option to do the actual retrieval of rpm files from perzl.org and place them into /QOpenSys/download. Below we see a portion of the retrieval logs that have been mostly omitted for brevity.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh aix61 wget git-1.8.5.4

--17:28:43-- http://www.oss4aix.org/download/RPMS/bash/bash-4.2-12.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

           => `bash-4.2-12.aix5.1.ppc.rpm'

Resolving www.oss4aix.org... 178.254.6.100

Connecting to www.oss4aix.org[178.254.6.100]:80... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK

Length: 1,764,856 [application/x-rpm]

100%[===================================================================================>] 1,764,856     1.45M/s

17:28:45 (1.45 MB/s) - `bash-4.2-12.aix5.1.ppc.rpm' saved [1764856/1764856]

Next we run the "rpmv" option to learn what commands will be invoked to install the rpm files we downloaded with the previous "wget" option. It's worth noting you don't need to invoke "wgetv" or "rpmv." Yet, I like to do it to gain perspective as to what will be installed on my system.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh aix61 rpmv git-1.8.5.4

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv bash-4.2-12.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv bzip2-1.0.5-3.aix5.3.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv curl-7.27.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv bash-4.2-10.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv gdbm-1.10-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv gettext-0.10.40-8.aix5.2.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv info-4.13a-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libgcc-4.7.2-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libiconv-1.14-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libidn-1.25-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libssh2-1.4.2-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv openssl-1.0.1c-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv perl-5.8.8-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv zlib-1.2.3-4.aix5.2.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv openldap-2.4.23-0.3.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv db4-4.7.25-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv expat-2.1.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv fontconfig-2.10.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv freetype2-2.5.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv freetype2-2.5.2-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libpng-1.6.7-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv gmp-5.1.3-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libgcc-4.8.2-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libstdc++-4.8.2-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv info-5.1-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv less-458-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libffi-3.0.13-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libidn-1.28-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv info-5.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libpng-1.6.9-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libssh2-1.4.3-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libgcc-4.8.1-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv openssl-1.0.1e-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libXft-2.3.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv fontconfig-2.8.0-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv freetype2-2.4.10-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libXrender-0.9.7-2.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv libXrender-0.9.8-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv openssl-1.0.1f-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv popt-1.7-2.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv python-2.6.8-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv gmp-5.0.5-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv python-libs-2.6.8-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv readline-6.2-4.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv sqlite-3.7.17-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv tcl-8.5.14-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv tk-8.5.14-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv readline-6.2-5.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv rsync-3.1.0-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv sqlite-3.8.1-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv tcl-8.5.15-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv tk-8.5.15-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

rpm --ignoreos --ignorearch --nodeps --replacepkgs -hUv git-1.8.5.4-1.aix5.1.ppc.rpm

Now we're ready to run the "rpm" option, which will install all of the above rpm files onto our IBM i.

$ ./wwwperzl.sh aix61 rpm git-1.8.5.4

During this process, you'll see a lot of messages like "group system does not exist - using root," which are expected. At this point, Git now exists on your IBM i. The last step is to configure your profile by setting two global Git values that will be stored in file .gitconfig in your home directory (i.e., /home/aaron/.gitconfig). The user.name and user.email global Git values should obviously have your information put in place of John Doe's. These values are used when you do Git commits so that the Git repository can document who made the changes.

$ git config --global user.name "John Doe"

$ git config --global user.email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

From here, you can use the git binary just like you would on any other system. If the realization hasn't quite hit you yet, this was an incredibly simple way to have Git ported and running on IBM i. There are many more tools available that Michale Perzl has ported. So please take time to check them out.

That concludes this article. Stay tuned because next we will learn how to connect our IBM i to an external service like GitHub and Bitbucket. My hope is this will aid the IBM i community in contributing to open source.

Until next time!