Turtle is one of the few fully open-source and free Git manager apps for Linux. To be more precise, it's a graphical interface for one of the most popular version control systems out there, Git, and it's mainly designed to run on GNOME and Nautilus.

There's a lot to be said about Turtle, but I have to start by pointing out that this is mostly a command-line tool, meaning you shouldn't expect much in terms of GUI elements.

Sure, the app does have a very good Settings section, and most of the Git actions are done through a user-friendly dialog window (log and commit windows, for instance), but that's about it. Its main goal is to provide you quick access to your Git repos directly from GNOME's Nautilus.

It does this with the help of a Nautilus plugin (that should, at least in theory, work with other file managers as well such as Caja, Nemo, and Thunar). This plugin basically adds a series of context menu entries (within Nautilus itself) alongside a series of emblems.

Since we're on the subject, it's worth noting that if you use the Flatpak version of the app, you are required to install Nautilus manually (but don't worry, it's done with a few simple actions, just check the Settings section for more info).

Turtle is obviously not the most advanced Git manager out there. However, it manages to cover a wide range of bases. With the currently supported dialogs, you can perform the following actions: commit, add, stage, unstage, revert, resolve, synchronize, as well as pull and push.

The app also allows you to checkout, create new branches, merge branches, init, clone, log, diff, as well as handle remotes and submodules.

As mentioned before, Turtle is far from impressive. However, I really like the whole minimalist approach to Git management. It might feel a bit weird not having a proper GUI at first, but the way Turtle works with GNOME is really smooth and nice.

For more information about the project, check out the app's official Gitlab repo.