These are daily snapshots of Linux' ["kernel"] tree (managed in a git repository, hence the name).
These ["patch"]es are usually released daily and represent the current state of Linus' tree. They are more experimental than -rc kernels since they are generated automatically and have not been looked over and deemed worthy of -rc status yet. -git patches are not incremental and apply either to a base 2.6.x kernel or a base 2.6.x-rc kernel - you can see which from their name, a patch named 2.6.12-git1 applies to the 2.6.12 kernel source and a patch named 2.6.13-rc3-git2 applies to the source of the 2.6.13-rc3 kernel.
Examples
Here are some examples of how to apply these patches
# moving from 2.6.12 to 2.6.12-git1 $ cd ~/linux-2.6.12 # change to the kernel source dir $ patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.12-git1 # apply the 2.6.12-git1 patch $ cd .. $ mv linux-2.6.12 linux-2.6.12-git1 # rename the kernel source dir
# moving from 2.6.12-git1 to 2.6.13-rc2-git3 $ cd ~/linux-2.6.12-git1 # change to the kernel source dir $ patch -p1 -R < ../patch-2.6.12-git1 # revert the 2.6.12-git1 patch
- # we now have a 2.6.12 kernel
$ patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.13-rc2 # apply the 2.6.13-rc2 patch
- # the kernel is now 2.6.13-rc2
$ patch -p1 < ../patch-2.6.13-rc2-git3 # apply the 2.6.13-rc2-git3 patch
- # the kernel is now 2.6.13-rc2-git3
$ cd .. $ mv linux-2.6.12-git1 linux-2.6.13-rc2-git3 # rename source dir
Fetch
To fetch an -["mm"] tree using git, use (for example)
- ["git-fetch"] git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/smurf/linux-trees.git tag v2.6.16-rc2-mm1 ["git-checkout"] -b local-v2.6.16-rc2-mm1 v2.6.16-rc2-mm1