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How to Install Git on Ubuntu 18.04 -[Explained]
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How to Install Git on Ubuntu 18.04 [Explained]

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Git version controlling system is a handy tool when it comes to large, complicated, and distributed projects. It is used by the majority of organizations and developers to keep track of their code changes and managing teams.

Git, as an open-source tool, keeps on updating to add new commands and provide more functionalities. If you are on Ubuntu 18.04, then you might be facing some problems with running a few advanced Git commands.

This article is designed to guide the users of Ubuntu 18.04 as well as 16.04 to install Git for their system. The same instructions will work for any other Ubuntu-based distribution, such as Linux Mint,
Kubuntu, and Elementary OS.

Before moving ahead with this article, make sure that you are either a root user or else you possess sudo privileges.

Installing Git with Apt [Recommended Way]

apt package management is a tool to install Git from Ubuntu’s own repositories. Follow the following steps to install Git on your Ubuntu system.

If you have Git already installed, but you want to update it to the latest version, then skip this section, and check the second method discussed in the article, i.e., Installing Git from the Source.

Step#01: Update Package Index

$ sudo apt update

Step#02: Install Git

$ sudo apt install git

Step#03: Verify Git Installation by Checking the Version

$ git --version
Following these steps will successfully install Git on your Ubuntu system, and you can finally start using it.

Installing Git from the Source [Latest Version Way]

Installing Git from the Source will allow you to install the latest version of Git on your Ubuntu-based system. However, in this case, you will not be able to install Git from apt package manager. You can also customize build options in this way.
Follow the steps to make a shift to the latest Git version.

Step#01: Install Dependencies to Build Git on Ubuntu

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install make libssl-dev libghc-zlib-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libexpat1-dev gettext unzip

Step#02: Go to the Main Directory

After you are done with the installation, go to the /usr/src directory because that’s where we will place our new Git installation file. To do so, run the following command:

$ cd /usr/src

Step#03: Download the Required Git File

Now download the git.tar.gz file with the following command:
$ sudo wget https://github.com/git/git/archive/ v2.31.0.tar.gz -O git.tar.gz

Step#04: Extract the File

The next step is to extract this downloaded file. 
$ sudo tar -xf git.tar.gz
$ cd "git-2.31.0"

By the time of writing this article, the latest Git release is v2.31.0. However, you can replace the version number with the Git release you want to use.

Step#05: Execute the File

Finally, run the following commands to compile the extracted file and install Git on your Ubuntu-based system.
$ sudo make prefix=/usr/local all
$ sudo make prefix=/usr/local install
To verify that your Git version has been updated, type and execute the following command to check the version number.
If you want to upgrade to a recent version, you need to repeat the same steps with the new installation file.

Conclusion

This article addresses the issue of installing the latest version of Git for Ubuntu 18.04 users. We discussed two ways to achieve this, one was to use the Apt Package Manager and the other was to use the Source. If you are having difficulty with running some of the latest commands then follow this article.
Read also: How to Install MySQL in Linux | A Complete Guide