Why does Git in Cygwin complain about info/refs not being found?

Question

I am learning to use git with Drupal. I'm using Cywgin (Windows-based Linux command line), and trying to follow Practicing patches. The documentation tells me to use the command:

git clone --branch master http://git.drupal.org/project/current_content.git

However, I appear to have an old version of Git, because it tells me that "--branch" is unknown. The Git troubleshoot page explains a work around:

git clone [project_url] [directory]
cd [directory]
git checkout --track origin/[existing_branch_name] -b [tracking_branch_name]

However, the first line tells me:

fatal: http://git.drupal.org/project/current_posts/current_posts.git/info/refs
 not found: did you run git update-server-info on the server?

Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong? I've got the last version of git via Cygwin.

Answer 1

From the error, it looks like your git clone line was incorrect (it complains about current_posts—which isn't a project—instead of current_content—which is). Try:

git clone http://git.drupal.org/project/current_content.git

You can also do:

git clone [email protected]:/project/current_content.git

Note that the master branch is the default branch: you don't need to specify it in the clone or afterwards: it'll automatically check it out.