There's a new SCM/version control software from ionForge called Evolution. It gives you easy, encrypted connectivity for collaborating over the web. It's quick to install and relatively intuitive to use. Single-user licenses are free at the ionForge website and multi-user licenses are $550 per license, which is less than comparable alternatives.
There's a new SCM/version control software from ionForge called Evolution. It gives you easy, encrypted connectivity for collaborating over the web. It's quick to install and relatively intuitive to use. Single-user licenses are free at the ionForge website and multi-user licenses are $550 per license, which is less than comparable alternatives.
I'd stay away from CVS, its pretty lame old UNIX software from way back. Perforce is the best you can find, used on some huge professional projects. And if you can get a free version for small projects, then that's perfect.
Foxbat121-
My company has a very large Clearcase installation (400+ developers) with most clients being Windows machines and we are generally pleased with the features and performance. Of course, the first couple of years were hell. The last 3 or 4 years have been trouble free for the most part. I've been using it daily for more that 5 years now and have never experienced a license server problem.
My Company spent near a million $$ upgraded to ClearCase a few years back. It's a biggest waste of money and bottle neck on productivity. Yes, it does have extensive administrative tools and features. That's why managers all love ClearCase because they are the ones who don't have to write a single line of code. For software engineers, we have to spend half of the day just to synchronize every one's work. Spend probably one hour to make code changes and spend rest of the day try to deliver that code change to the CC so every one else could get the changes next day. It's slow and buggy as hell.
Yes, it does have Windows Explorer integration. However, if the license server is down for whatever reason, your Explorer (and every one else with CC installed) will have 2-minute delay every time you try to bring up the context menu even though you're not using any of the CC features.
you can count me in for another vote for Subversion. My company uses VSS and I agree with everyone else, it sucks. I personally use Subversion for my own stuff and I'm working on convincing my company to swtich. I'd like to see Anandtech make the switch and spread the news.
I've used Source Safe, PVCS, CVS, Subversion & ClearCase.
The strongest of these products is without a doubt Rational ClearCase. But as other mentioned, its also by far the most expensive on all fronts (administration, support, hardware, price).
ClearCase is integrated into explorer with its view architecture (defining views is not trivial and can cause alot of headackes).
Subversion is also directly supported by simple integration (tigris) of the explorer. However using the recommended way of handling branches, its very logical and straightforward to use.
As a pricy consultant I would recommend ClearCase for any big companies with alot of cash.
As a person with a love for programming, I would recommend subversion to anyone else.
I would in no way ever spend time on CVS, PVCS or Source Safe ever again.
Source Gear Vault (http://www.sourcegear.com/) is free for a single user. Much better if your just looking for something for yourself for home usage. It stores it's content is a sql server database too, so backup is a snap.
they all provide the same funtionality. cvsnt probably has the most documentation. and if you need to eventually use it on more systems, its scalability is cheaper.
Hey starjax (or anyone else reading this) - I have been using Clearcase for years at work (Windows environment). Which of these free tools is closest to the Clearcase environment? I am looking only for a system that will be run on a single XP PC.
clearcase.... expensive, administrative heavy, resource heavy (server side). Used only in environments where there are many software/revisions to track. WHere I work we have the largest install base for clearcase and run the largest vob's (up to 100gig). yes thats what I said. most vobs are aroun 3-4 gigs.
For me, it's hard to imagine using source control without atomic commits (which SVN has and CVS doesn't), but then, I cut my teeth on Perforce which has had them forever.
Well I can't get past the step of creating my first module... "bad login or user" sort of error every time. No idea how to get past that. There's nowhere to even enter a password....
ncage, yep the old visual source safe was a joke. However, from what i hear the new Team System stuff coming out with Visual Source Safe 2005 is supposed to be very slick. I linked to it in alternative source control products.
ooops looks like i didn't read far enough..there are plugins for the ide. I will have to use it to see if the integration is as nice as it is with sourcesafe.
Least you guys aren't still using source safe ;). SourceSafe really sucks...its the access DB of the version control world. At work we have had so much trouble with sourcesafe corruption. We have the sourcesafe analyze utility running every night but if there is on developer that leaves sourcesafe open or VB6 with the sourcesafe add-in..the analyze will fail. The only thing nice about source safe is the IDE integration..you would have to build this for the free alternatives (if not already available) which would suck. Anyways, btw, i have used starteam and it ROCKS but very expensive.
One drawback to Subversion is the Apache dependancy. There is no IIS support, at least last time I looked. It requires Apache or you have to setup a Synserve for remote access. From the time I spent with Subversion, CVSNT was much easier to setup and get going quickly.
CVS has many well known problems and is missing some key features. Being able to rename files/directories in Subversion and recording that name change as part of the file history is amazingly useful.
Perforce is good from the ease-of-use angle, but it is expensive for more than two people. For that reason I moved to Subversion at work, having previously used both Perforce and CVSNT for several months previously.
CVS is still very widely used and works very well. Subversion is one of many alternatives, we discussed CVS. Subversions commands are very similar to CVS, so if you get your feet wet with CVS, Subversion should be a piece of cake.
I would also like to recommend Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) instead of CVSNT. There is also a TortoiseSVN so you may use SVN exactly as described in this article.
Perforce is also perfect if you need a good and easy to setup system for handle your own source-code. However, if you need more than 2 users than prepare to shell out loads of cash.
I have set my cvsnt and have installed tortoise cvs client, now after running cvsnt server I am unable to create new module through tortoise for the folder containing a doc file in my D-drive. Please share me the steps to set new module as I am finding error as.
cvs [import aborted]: the :sspi: access method is not available on this system
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34 Comments
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NateS - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
There's a new SCM/version control software from ionForge called Evolution. It gives you easy, encrypted connectivity for collaborating over the web. It's quick to install and relatively intuitive to use. Single-user licenses are free at the ionForge website and multi-user licenses are $550 per license, which is less than comparable alternatives.NateS - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
There's a new SCM/version control software from ionForge called Evolution. It gives you easy, encrypted connectivity for collaborating over the web. It's quick to install and relatively intuitive to use. Single-user licenses are free at the ionForge website and multi-user licenses are $550 per license, which is less than comparable alternatives.DonPMitchell - Wednesday, January 5, 2005 - link
I'd stay away from CVS, its pretty lame old UNIX software from way back. Perforce is the best you can find, used on some huge professional projects. And if you can get a free version for small projects, then that's perfect.jayoung - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - link
I'm having a tremendous headache setting it up. Here's the error I recieve:Followed the instructions up to the part where you create a new module
and I keep getting the same error.
In C:\DOCUME~1\Joseph\LOCALS~1\Temp\TortoiseCVS make new module temp\:
"C:\Program Files\TortoiseCVS\cvs.exe" "-q" "-x" "import" "-m" ""
"testmod" "tcvs-vendor" "tcvs-release"
CVSROOT=:sspi:Joseph@localhost:2401/cvsroot
cvs [server aborted]: can't create temporary directory
C:\temp\cvstemp/cvs-serv2304: Permission denied
Error, CVS operation failed
Pauli - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - link
Foxbat121-My company has a very large Clearcase installation (400+ developers) with most clients being Windows machines and we are generally pleased with the features and performance. Of course, the first couple of years were hell. The last 3 or 4 years have been trouble free for the most part. I've been using it daily for more that 5 years now and have never experienced a license server problem.
Foxbat121 - Tuesday, January 4, 2005 - link
My Company spent near a million $$ upgraded to ClearCase a few years back. It's a biggest waste of money and bottle neck on productivity. Yes, it does have extensive administrative tools and features. That's why managers all love ClearCase because they are the ones who don't have to write a single line of code. For software engineers, we have to spend half of the day just to synchronize every one's work. Spend probably one hour to make code changes and spend rest of the day try to deliver that code change to the CC so every one else could get the changes next day. It's slow and buggy as hell.Yes, it does have Windows Explorer integration. However, if the license server is down for whatever reason, your Explorer (and every one else with CC installed) will have 2-minute delay every time you try to bring up the context menu even though you're not using any of the CC features.
Bookie - Monday, January 3, 2005 - link
you can count me in for another vote for Subversion. My company uses VSS and I agree with everyone else, it sucks. I personally use Subversion for my own stuff and I'm working on convincing my company to swtich. I'd like to see Anandtech make the switch and spread the news.neogodless - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - link
I got it to work with NO username after some experimentation, but it didn't match the example in the "tutorial". Thanks for the help, anyway!Jason Clark - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - link
neogodless, if you have difficulties with SSPI, try pserver, it will still auth against the NT user database. SSPI should work though.Cheers
Sokaku - Thursday, December 30, 2004 - link
I've used Source Safe, PVCS, CVS, Subversion & ClearCase.The strongest of these products is without a doubt Rational ClearCase. But as other mentioned, its also by far the most expensive on all fronts (administration, support, hardware, price).
ClearCase is integrated into explorer with its view architecture (defining views is not trivial and can cause alot of headackes).
Subversion is also directly supported by simple integration (tigris) of the explorer. However using the recommended way of handling branches, its very logical and straightforward to use.
As a pricy consultant I would recommend ClearCase for any big companies with alot of cash.
As a person with a love for programming, I would recommend subversion to anyone else.
I would in no way ever spend time on CVS, PVCS or Source Safe ever again.
skunkbuster - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
cute turtle !!viscount1baby - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Source Gear Vault (http://www.sourcegear.com/) is free for a single user. Much better if your just looking for something for yourself for home usage. It stores it's content is a sql server database too, so backup is a snap.starjax - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
they all provide the same funtionality. cvsnt probably has the most documentation. and if you need to eventually use it on more systems, its scalability is cheaper.Pauli - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Hey starjax (or anyone else reading this) - I have been using Clearcase for years at work (Windows environment). Which of these free tools is closest to the Clearcase environment? I am looking only for a system that will be run on a single XP PC.starjax - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
clearcase.... expensive, administrative heavy, resource heavy (server side). Used only in environments where there are many software/revisions to track. WHere I work we have the largest install base for clearcase and run the largest vob's (up to 100gig). yes thats what I said. most vobs are aroun 3-4 gigs.JCheng - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Here's a list of improvements Subversion holds over CVS:http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch01s03.html
For me, it's hard to imagine using source control without atomic commits (which SVN has and CVS doesn't), but then, I cut my teeth on Perforce which has had them forever.
neogodless - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Well I can't get past the step of creating my first module... "bad login or user" sort of error every time. No idea how to get past that. There's nowhere to even enter a password....Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
WooDaddy, never used ClearCase.. Either CVS or Subversion should handle just about any project though.Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
ncage, yep the old visual source safe was a joke. However, from what i hear the new Team System stuff coming out with Visual Source Safe 2005 is supposed to be very slick. I linked to it in alternative source control products.WooDaddy - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
How does this compare to ClearCase?ncage - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
ooops looks like i didn't read far enough..there are plugins for the ide. I will have to use it to see if the integration is as nice as it is with sourcesafe.ncage - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Least you guys aren't still using source safe ;). SourceSafe really sucks...its the access DB of the version control world. At work we have had so much trouble with sourcesafe corruption. We have the sourcesafe analyze utility running every night but if there is on developer that leaves sourcesafe open or VB6 with the sourcesafe add-in..the analyze will fail. The only thing nice about source safe is the IDE integration..you would have to build this for the free alternatives (if not already available) which would suck. Anyways, btw, i have used starteam and it ROCKS but very expensive.Stefpet - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
SVN does not require Apache if you use svnserve. If you use svnserve you simply run it as a service similar to CVSNT.Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
One drawback to Subversion is the Apache dependancy. There is no IIS support, at least last time I looked. It requires Apache or you have to setup a Synserve for remote access. From the time I spent with Subversion, CVSNT was much easier to setup and get going quickly.Just an FYI.
Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
I've listed some of the other free alternatives, and some commercial alternatives.Yes, CVS lacks in some areas, but for the average user CVS is more than sufficient.
Damien - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
CVS has many well known problems and is missing some key features. Being able to rename files/directories in Subversion and recording that name change as part of the file history is amazingly useful.Perforce is good from the ease-of-use angle, but it is expensive for more than two people. For that reason I moved to Subversion at work, having previously used both Perforce and CVSNT for several months previously.
Jason Clark - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
CVS is still very widely used and works very well. Subversion is one of many alternatives, we discussed CVS. Subversions commands are very similar to CVS, so if you get your feet wet with CVS, Subversion should be a piece of cake.Stefpet - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
I would also like to recommend Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) instead of CVSNT. There is also a TortoiseSVN so you may use SVN exactly as described in this article.Perforce is also perfect if you need a good and easy to setup system for handle your own source-code. However, if you need more than 2 users than prepare to shell out loads of cash.
lysinewf - Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - link
Perforce! it's free for 2 users.Souka - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
Subversion? Do share......Sokaku - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
I agree, cvs is replaced by subversion.cosmotic - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
heh, I was going to say the same thing. CVS kinda sucks.Cat - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - link
What, no Subversion?kishore.kumar - Friday, September 15, 2017 - link
I have set my cvsnt and have installed tortoise cvs client, now after running cvsnt server I am unable to create new module through tortoise for the folder containing a doc file in my D-drive. Please share me the steps to set new module as I am finding error as.cvs [import aborted]: the :sspi: access method is not available on this system