clone - get a copy of a repository

To obtain a copy of a repository, use git clone:

# use this for readonly checkout 
$ git clone http://github.com/pmichaud/book.git

# use this if you have write authorization
$ git clone git@github.com:pmichaud/book.git book

Initialized empty Git repository in /home/pmichaud/book/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 299, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (285/285), done.
Receiving objects: 100% (299/299), 61.53 KiB, done.
remote: Total 299 (delta 177), reused 0 (delta 0)
Resolving deltas: 100% (177/177), done.
$