CVS on Unix

CVS is a version control system, which allows you to keep old versions of files (usually source code), keep a log of who, when, and why changes occurred, etc., like RCS or SCCS.

CVS has been running under unix for a long time and should work with few hassles on most unix and unix-compatible operating systems.

Where to get CVS for Unix

The book Programming with GNU Software is an introduction to the GNU software development tools running on UNIX. The CD-ROM which accompanies the book includes a copy of CVS, including executables for six unix platforms.

Our $40 CD-ROM includes some CVS executables for some unix platforms in directories such as "misc/unix", "misc/version-archive/cvs/cvs-1.8-binaries", and "misc/rcs/cvsaux-1.0". Disclaimer: the programs in the "misc" directory are not as well-packaged as CVS itself, and we do not offer installation support for the "misc" directory. The CD-ROM also includes the CVS source distribution, described below.

The Cyclic download site at http://download.cyclic.com/pub/ contains various CVS executables for unix. If you are a Standard Support customer and your platform is missing, please let us know. If not, well you get what you pay for :-).

In many cases unix users will prefer to build CVS from the source distribution. See the INSTALL file in the source distribution for details on your specific flavour of unix (HPUX, AIX, Digital Unix, Irix, Solaris, &c).

NetBSD have a nice web page describing their CVS package (running on NetBSD, of course). CVS is also distributed with FreeBSD.

Graphical User Interfaces

The most popular graphical user interfaces on unix are probably tkCVS and jCVS.