Clone from a branch other than master

Try this:

git init
git fetch url-to-repo branchname:refs/remotes/origin/branchname

EDIT

A better solution:

git clone -b mybranch --single-branch git://sub.domain.com/repo.git

git clone <url>

clones and creates remote-tracking branches for each branch. If you want to see available branches (after cloning), you type

git branch -l

To switch to a particular branch after cloning you do:

git checkout <branchname>

where branchname is the name of the branch :)

If you want to clone and checkout a specific branch you do

git clone -b <branchname> <url>

The other commands you mention are for "updating" your current working copy. git pull gets all changes from the remote repository and merges them while git fetchonly gets them without merging.

use git clone --branch <name> possibly adding --single-branch

as usual you have git clone --help to read details on commands