Personal Version Controller

Question

I'd like to know if there is any personal source controller, I'd like to have a repository on my machine without going through setting up a server, also I work with TeX files not any particular language and I'd like to have backups of my files the way sub version does

Answer 1

Git creates repositories that do not require a central server. Also, you can of course restore any previous version for tracked files which is—of course—what source control systems are all about. :)

Edit: There are other decentralized version control systems out there, e.g. Mercurial and Bazaar. They all offer more or less exactly the same features so it’s mostly a matter of personal taste.

Answer 2

I'd like to have backups of my files the way sub version does

There you go, you just answered your own question. Use subversion, you can install it as a local repository, or even keep the repository on a flash/usb disk. That's what I do.

Answer 3

For clarification if you are interested in SVN or tortoiseSVN:

You can create a local svn-repository by using:

svnadmin create c:\my_folder\new_repo

or the appropriate TortoiseSVN Command "Create repository here"

You can checkout your Repository with the well-known file URL:

svn checkout file:///c:/my_folder/new_repo

or by using the checkout dialog of Tortoise SVN and using this File-URL. Note that you need 3 slashes after

file:

and all Windows backslashes("\") must be converted to normal slashes ("/")

Then you have a Subversion workingcopy up and running and can use it as you like.

Answer 4

If you install TortoiseSVN you have Subversion support included in your Windows Explorer. You don't need to install SVN because everything it needs is included in the setup. You can create a repository anywhere in the filesystem where you want.

Answer 5

If you work on a Windows machine and don't want to set up a Subversion server and service, I can recommend Mercurial together with TortoiseHg.

TortoiseHg is a graphical user interface for Mercurial just like TortoiseSVN is for Subversion. So if you have Subversion experience, it will be easy for you to switch to Mercurial.

Mercurial does not need a special server or even a repository location, you set up your repositories in your project directory. You can then move or copy your project directory including your repository, for example to copy it to a laptop. Afterwards, you can merge he two copies of your project directory. So you are always carrying your repository with you.

Answer 6

i'm not sure what you mean by svn backup. probably you should try mercurial (hg).

• your local files and the repository are at the same place (it's a distributed system)
• you can easily move the local files/repository around
• use pull/push to sync with another parent repository (i.e. on an external harddrive for backup)
• doesn't need a server
• easy to work with others, even just using email & mercurial bundels ...
• has much more features than svn, e.g. you have more control if you change something (in a new branch or using mercurial-queues) and then switching to these changes in one go.