This results in a branchless checkout (detached HEAD). Making changes
like this is a valid way to use Git, but IMO not something we should
be recommending.
Branches are cheap and it's harder to lose your commits if they're on
a named branch than on a detached HEAD.
however both will update the remote-tracking branches in your
repository.
-To switch to another branch:
-
- % git checkout origin/maint-5.8-dor
-
To make a local branch of a remote branch:
% git checkout -b maint-5.10 origin/maint-5.10