Q:

Clone remote git repository for local use without interfering with the remote branch

I want to clone the public Linux master branch from Kernel.org so I can experiment with the code on my personal computer without affecting the public branch. I have already performed git clone and a clone resides on my computer. How would I keep my experimenting from affecting the master branch?
Note: I'm using Windows.

A:

It doesn't matter if you use windows or any other operating system. If you have your local clone of a remote repository you can do whatever you want and as long as you don't use git push origin master the remote repository will not be affected. If you do not want to affect the local master branch then - just create another branch (git checkout -b <branch_name>) and work there.
I think this book is a nice read to get started with Git.

