What's the difference between Git Clone & Repo Sync

Question

I'm a newbie in Android and while syncing Android sources I saw we used repo init and repo sync command whereas while syncing kernel source we use git clone.. Why do we use two different commands for a kernel source & android OS while they're on same website (github)? Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

When repo sync is executed

• repo sync is equivalent to git clone if the project has never been synchronized.

• If synchronized once, then repo sync is equivalent to:

  git remote update
  git rebase origin/branch
  

where branch is the currently checked-out branch in the local project directory.