Junio, I think there is something wrong with git-merge. It sometimes takes up to ten seconds, and it's stuck at the git-show-branch --independent "$head" "$@" call. I don't know quite what that thing is even meant to do (we do already know the parents, why do we do something special here?) but even apart from that, the whole thing must be doing something seriously wrong, since it takes so long. Does it check the whole commit history? Linus - : send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html