I tried the sequence below and got this: simonpj@cam-05-unx:~/code/ghc-7.8-branch$mailto:simonpj@cam-05-unx:~/code/ghc-7.8-branch$ git checkout ghc-7.8 warning: unable to rmdir utils/haddock: Directory not empty M libraries/Cabal M libraries/binary M libraries/vector Branch ghc-7.8 set up to track remote branch ghc-7.8 from origin. Switched to a new branch 'ghc-7.8' simonpj@cam-05-unx:~/code/ghc-7.8-branch$ ls utils/haddock/ ANNOUNCE doc/ haddock.cabal haskell.vim latex-test/ make-sdist.sh Setup.lhs* test/ build-windows-dist.sh driver/ haddock.spec hcar.tex LICENSE README src/ vendor/ CHANGES ghc.mk haddock.wrapper html-test/ Makefile resources/ STYLE simonpj@cam-05-unx:~/code/ghc-7.8-branch$ git submodule update Submodule path 'libraries/Cabal': checked out 'c226c0de042999bbe4c5c339c6c28a9be7f0c6d1' Submodule path 'libraries/binary': checked out '2799c25d85b4627200f2e4dcb30d2128488780c3' Submodule path 'libraries/vector': checked out '9baab444a57c4a225ee247fea27187d1892d90bf' simonpj@cam-05-unx:~/code/ghc-7.8-branch$ Notice the bit in red, and the lack of a submodule update message with I did "git submodule update". This is a completely fresh tree, newly cloned from the main repo. Thanks Simon From: ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Simon Peyton Jones Sent: 24 April 2014 09:23 To: ghc-devs@haskell.org Subject: Cloning ghc-7.8 How would I get a GHC 7.8 branch repo? Something like git clone http://git.haskell.org/ghc.git ghc-7.8-branch cd ghc-7.8-branch ./sync-all get git checkout ghc-7.8 git submodule update Is that enough? What about the non-submodule libraries? Do I need to do any more pull/get stuff? This would be another great entry on the workflow page. Thanks Simon