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I installed Git (the one that says "Fast, scalable, distributed revision control system") from Ubuntu software center.

I also choose the optional packs (git-gui and gitk).

All of these steps got successfully completed but I am not sure how to invoke Git-Gui.

Can some one let me know how ?

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  • terminal type gitk or git-gui
    – dedunu
    Sep 9, 2013 at 2:20
  • if you are a beginner in using git i recommend you to use git from the terminal that's more educational about git than using git gui tools.
    – Sudheer
    Jun 9, 2016 at 7:13
  • Run sudo apt-get install git-gui and then run git gui, note that there is a space between git and gui in 2nd command. Mar 22, 2019 at 4:01

3 Answers 3

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gitk should be invoked from command-line in your root git repository. You should look into git-cola for more featureful git gui.

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The Git GUI is accessible from the Lens. Press the Super key and type "Git", then click on the icon that appears:

enter image description here

If you wish to retain the Git GUI icon in the Launcher right click on it and select "Lock to Launcher".

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    Weirdly this does not happen for me. I can run git gui from a command line, but typing in the Dash does not show it as an option
    – Kibi
    Sep 11, 2014 at 9:11
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    Kibi: if you are reporting to 14.04 then you are probably missing the qgit package. Sep 11, 2014 at 9:29
  • Luis: thanks - I now see it, but qgit is not exactly git-gui...might be better for me, I will check it out
    – Kibi
    Sep 11, 2014 at 10:19
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That can be confusing because the package is called git-gui but that program is executed in the terminal through the git binary with gui as the parameter (a parameter in the terminal is just a string of text that gets passed to the program (git binary), the string of text in this case being gui. The program will decide what it will do based on that parameter.)

This is what you execute, change directory into your project directory before you invoke the command:

git gui

You will also have to initialize a git repository before you can "git gui".

Create a directory where all your source files and other assets will live:

mkdir myprojectname

cd myprojectname

git init

Now you have a local git repo.

The repository is the .git directory in you project directory. dot (.) files & directories are hidden in Linux. You can see hidden files in your file manager by hitting ctrl + h. In the command line you would pass the -a parameter to the ls command:

ls -a

You may not have git-gui installed. This command will install git, git-gui and a couple of other packages related to git, for Debian distros, use your package manager if you're using another family.

sudo apt-get install git-all

If you already have git installed but not git-gui, run:

sudo apt-get install git-gui

I wrote a bit more information on git than just the git-gui because I thought that people coming to this page are possibly not well versed in Linux and git if they want to use the gui part of it. Sure the gui is good and it really is just an interface to the commands that you will run on the command line. The command line is more powerfúl however because you can do things through it that you can't do through a GUI and it is much quicker. You can learn the gist of git through the gui but I do recommend that you learn about the Linux command line if you want to get serious about programming and computers. There are plenty of books on Amazon that are great for that.

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