The first step you'd do is, clone a remote git repository and cd into it:
$ git clone git://example.com/myproject
$ cd myproject
Next, verify the local branches in your repository:
$ git branch
* master
But there are different branches hiding in your repository. You can see these using the -a flag:
$ git branch -a
* master
remotes/origin/HEAD
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/v1.0-stable
remotes/origin/experimental
If you simply need to take a quick peek at an upstream branch, you can check it out directly:
$ git checkout origin/experimental
But if you wish to work on that branch, you'll need to create a local tracking branch which is done automatically by:
$ git checkout experimental
and you will see
Branch experimental started to track remote branch experimental from the origin.
Switched to a new branch 'experimental'
What it really means is that the branch is taken from the index and created locally for you. The previous line is basically more informative because it tells you that the branch is being set up to track the remote branch, which usually means the origin/branch_name branch.
Now, if you look into your native branches, this is what you'll see:
$ git branch
* experimental
master
You can truly track more than one remote repository using git remote.
$ git remote add win32 git://example.com/users/joe/myproject-win32-port
$ git branch -a
* master
remotes/origin/HEAD
remotes/origin/master
remotes/origin/v1.0-stable
remotes/origin/experimental
remotes/win32/master
remotes/win32/new-widgets
At this point, things are getting pretty crazy, so run gitk to see what's going on:
$ gitk --all &
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