There are several DVCS around:
Bazaar,
Mercurial and
Git. What I am going to cover here, can be
accomplished by each of them. In my examples I refer to Bazaar.
You will find notes on how to install the software on the homepage of
each system. It is always very easy.
To use the DVCS open a terminal on Linux and Mac OS X or the command
line interpreter under Windows and change into the directory where you
want to write your novel. On Linux and Mac OS X you would type:
Mind posterity, author! Don’t you daydream that some day legions of
scientists analyze your writings to find out, when you get for the first
time the idea to make a tiny alien called Glimpsy the hero of your
novels? Sure you do. And you can make research easier for them if you
use a version control system.
WTF is a version control system?
A version control system is something to keep track of changes in code.
Developer use a VCS when they write their programs. If you ever
wondered, what these guys are doing, when they hack onto their
keyboards, here I’ll show you: they type in plain text like this: