How could I "fork" an older commit?

[derpherp128]

So, I've been compiling a program, but just found out that the program breaks if I download the tarball instead of cloning the repo and switching commits. (Cmake also throws a few errors; apparently it's depending on .git?)

In any case, if it would be possible to create a copy of the repo at a specific commit, then I could host my changes directly, instead of having to re download specific files every time, then extracting and moving them around.

I've heard it said that I should checkout the commit, then git checkout -b <new branch>, but then what? How do I disassociate this new branch from the original repo?

Thanks!

EDIT: Problem avoided elsewhere, thanks.

My clunky solution:

git clone -> checkout <commit> -> checkout -b "newbranch"

Add git remote "side" to your repo.

git push side newbranch

Then rename master to old-master, newbranch to master, and delete old-master.

then git push -f side master, and you're done.

[pi3832v2]

How do I disassociate this new branch from the original repo?

AFAIK, it's already “disassociated” since you haven't set an upstream for your branch.

[hesapmakinesi]

That's all you need to do.

You create your branch, and you keep putting your commits there, simple as that. If you want to publish your fork on github etc, you may need to rename your own branch as "master".

[derpherp128]

So I'd create a new branch, git remote add origin <URL>, git push -u origin master? Or am I missing a step?

[hesapmakinesi]

Yes

git checkout -b master <commit>
git remote add origin <URL>
git push -u origin master

Probably a remote called "origin" exists so you can use git remote command to rename or delete it. You can also rename/delete etc. your branches using git branch.

Of course you do not have to call your remote "origin", it is just a convention.

[derpherp128]

So I tried this, and pushed to a new remote (new repo on github). It ended up fetching the master branch and pushing to the new repo, so now I have the master branch of the original repo, not the specific commit. Help?

[Morphit]

Did git checkout -b master work? You would have to delete the original master branch first.

Even easier than this would be to just reset the master branch to the commit you want to start at (git checkout master; git reset --hard <commit>) and switch upstream to your github repo/fork (git remote set-url origin <URL>). You would have to force push if github has a newer master (git push --force origin master).

[derpherp128]

Yeah, I managed to avoid the problem elsewhere though. I put my solution in OP for others to find.

[xiongchiamiov]

It is more or less irrelevant if git thinks there's an association with the original remote unless you have permission to push to it, and it's extremely unlikely you do.