How do I get Git 2.24 installed on Debian Buster?

You first need to check if the package is available in buster-backports. As you can see on Debian Packages, git is not available in backported packages. Not much time has been passed since the release of the latest stable release of Debian (Buster), so you might expect that there will not be so-many packages in the buster-backports. You can check the following for further details:

• https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/
• https://wiki.debian.org/Backports

One way to install another version of git would be to compile it from the source, but in that case you need to solve dependencies and maintain the updates yourself. Detailed instructions can be found in: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/INSTALL

Note that if you are new to Linux, or not confident with your Linux skills, I would not recommend doing that as you can easily mess up your dependencies.

To get version 2.24 or later, I recommend two approaches: ask for a backport, or build the 2.24 source package.

To ask for a backport, file a wishlist bug on git using reportbug. Backports have been made available in the past, so there’s a decent chance someone will provide one if you explain why you want it.

To build a newer package from source, run

sudo apt-get install devscripts dpkg-dev build-essential
sudo apt-get build-dep git
dget https://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/g/git/git_2.24.1-1.dsc
cd git-2.24.1
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc

This will install the necessary build dependencies and build the packages. You can then install the ones you need using sudo dpkg -i.

It’s not worth upgrading all your distribution to testing, just to get a newer version of git...

sudo apt-get -t buster-backports install git