Source Control with Backup

Question

I'm setting up Source Control for a one man software project.

It's important that the source control is:

• Easy to set up on Linux (Debian)
• Easily backup-able
  • A small set of files to be backed up
  • An automatic backup function would be great
• Free

What is my best option?

Answer 1

I'd go with git given its support on Linux. You can easily back up your staging areas with simple copy commands.

Consider these related questions:

• Version control with the least disk-space overhead
• How to make sure my git repro code is safe

Answer 2

I'd go with subversion. For a one-man project there is no need for distributed version control and it is easier to understand.

Answer 3

I found bazaar to be very easy to pick up. It doesn't require a server of any sort -- it's completely Python based, and the source control is kept within a ".bzr" folder at the top directory of the tree. It supports branching, merging, tagging, etc. You can also work just with local files on your filesystem, or you can "push" your changes to a remote server over ssh, ftp, http, or a bzr-specific server. Backing up your repository would be as simple as copying your .bzr folder, if you have the repository set up to not depend on the external files (bzr init-repo --no-trees).

Answer 4

Git or Mercurial

Both are beautiful, easy to setup project and have great documentation, especially if you're using it for one man team.