download a Git GUI

• it’s particularly useful for visually understanding the state of your repository
• you will eventually prefer the command-line for most command input (but can use the GUI if it works for you)
• recommended Git GUIs:
  • SourceTree - free, Mac + Windows
  • GitKraken - free for non-private repos, Mac + Windows + Linux

instead of git pull …

• do git fetch (see the new state of branches in your repo, this is always safe to do),
• then decide how you want to merge (ex. git merge --ff)