If your Linux distribution does not have git-annex packaged up for you, you can either build it fromsource, or you can use a handy prebuilt tarball of the most recent release.

This tarball should work on most Linux systems. It has basically no dependencies and is self-contained.

To use, just unpack the tarball, cd git-annex.linux and run ./runshell -- this sets up an environment where you can use git annex, as well as everything else included in the bundle.

Alternatively, you can unpack the tarball, and add the directory to your PATH, or symlink the programs in the directory to a directory in your PATH. This lets you use git annex, without overriding your system's own versions of git, etc.

The arm version can be installed on NAS devices and other embedded ARM linux systems.

The build for ancient kernels is for use with Linux kernel versions such as 2.6.32. It will work on both 32 and 64 bit systems.

autobuilds

An hourly autobuild is also available, hosted by Joey:

The arm autobuilder runs daily (sun permitting), and is hosted by Joey.

The arm64 autobuilder runs only intermittently. Better hosting needed.

building it yourself

This entails building git-annex from source, so you will first need to get that working, see fromsource for some of the details.

In git-annex's source tree, run make linuxstandalone. This will build git-annex from source, and then build the tarball bundle, into eg tmp/git-annex-standalone-amd64.tar.gz

This build process is done on a Debian system, and it needs to use dpkg to examine the host system.

technical details

The way those tarballs work is described in joeyh's blog.