Update section on system and global configuration of Git

[alex-ball]

Closes #164.

In episode 2, learners are asked to inspect their current Git configuration with git config --list. This re-formats and concatenates the contents of the system gitconfig and the user's global gitconfig (and then any repo- or folder-specific gitconfig files that apply).

As research for this, I looked at a recent installation of Git on a macOS system, and also performed fresh installations on Windows following the instructions for installing the shell as of 2026-02-25.

• I have updated the macOS output to reflect the contents of the system config that was installed at /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/share/git-core/gitconfig.

• I have updated the Windows output to reflect the contents of the system config at C:\Program Files\Git\etc\gitconfig following the above instructions with the Git for Windows v2.53.0 installer. In relation to issue Do we need to set branch name to main?  #164, note that the instructions say "Let Git decide" on the default branch name, which sets init.defaultbranch=master (reflecting Git's internal default).

• The fresh installation of Ubuntu (24.04 LTS) on WSL 2 did not ship with a system gitconfig. This reflects my experience with regular installations of Ubuntu and other distributions based on it. Because of this, git config --list yields no output; I have added a paragraph to reflect this.

• The instructions for installing Git for Windows include selecting Nano as the core.editor in the system config. I am unhappy about telling people who have done this to select it again. I have therefore expanded the callout about text editors to include a discussion of the relative merits of Nano and Vim, and mention that Nano may already be set as default. The comment about cross-platform availability sits better there. I have allowed some repetition of points made before the callout (about Vim being hard at first) and after (about Nano running in the shell) – I think the discussion inside the callout would be incomplete without those points, and those who skip the callout still need to see them – but I'm open to persuasion on that point.

• Finally, I have changed the emphasis of the part about the default branch from setting it to ensuring it, acknowledging that it may already be set to main. I have also added a callout explaining why repeating the setting in your own global config could nevertheless be useful.

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⏱️ Updated at 2026-03-06 11:33:43 +0000