UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi all,


I have successfully setup a CVS pserver. I have successfully installed WinCVS, the jEdit CVS plugin and the vim CVS menu script. I have also installed cvsweb.

All works ok, from the frontends and the CLI.

I have a grasp of what CVS does apart from the typical examples commit-update and so but I am having a difficult time getting any examples of real life situations and what to do when conflicts arise and how to prevent them as much as possible. I have done the usual research (cvshome.org and google deep searches) but the subject is covered so much that no good results show up. You know, simple heuristics and so that help so much.

I have to explain CVS to a bunch of junior types and so and can't really do it if I don't "get it" myself.

Do you have any good pointers? Thanks in advance.

dani++

[BTW: It will be on Solaris, are cvs-solaris good friends?]

CVS and Solaris are good enough friends. We use it to keep our NIS files from being screwed up by more than one admin (of course, that was when we had 14 admins versus the 3 still here - now it's not as big a deal).

From the man page:

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.
Unlike the simpler systems, CVS does not just operate on one
file at a time or one directory at a time, but operates on
hierarchical collections of directories consisting of ver-
sion controlled files. CVS helps to manage releases and to
control the concurrent editing of source files among multi-
ple authors. CVS allows triggers to enable/log/control
various operations and works well over a wide area network.

cvs keeps a single copy of the master sources. This copy is
called the source ``repository''; it contains all the infor-
mation to permit extracting previous software releases at
any time based on either a symbolic revision tag, or a date
in the past.
Home of CVS
CVS Docs has information on why,what, how.

SCCS which comes with Solaris is lousy for SAs since it sets file permissions to read-only instead of leaving the permissions the way they were.

RCS is just as good as CVS except you have to remember to check the file out first (RCS is being used for DNS zone files but CVS would work too).