Is Git now the only way to install Drush? Going in circles trying to figure out the right way to install Drush on a Linux CentOS system.  I have Git set up, but as I'm not planning to contribute to Drush code at the moment, it's not unambiguously clear that I should be using Git.

Some directions say to use PEAR, but when I go to the Drush project page, the directions say to get Drush 6 from Git.  Tutorials I have found demo wget and PEAR, not Git.  And the Git project page View says, "Use our Github project for contributing code, or reporting bugs, or requesting features," none of which applies.

Could an experienced Drupalista please answer the following?


Is Git now the only method of obtaining Drush?  Someone asked a
similar question more than a year ago when PEAR was still
recommended.  
If Git is the way to go, I have read that drush should not be installed within the website directories, so which directory is it recommended to be in when I invoke the following?

git clone --branch 7.x-5.x http://git.drupal.org/project/drush.git


I'm looking forward to using Drush.  Thanks!
Drush moved to GitHub a few weeks ago.  The official home is now: https://github.com/drush-ops/drush

The current preferred method is to install with composer:

composer global require drush/drush:6.*


If you are working with Drupal 8, or need a patch that hasn't been backported, then you can work with the latest version:

composer global require drush/drush:dev-master


You can also use composer to install a particular version. 

You can install it manually; and normal GitHub retrievals apply.  You can download the master (link is on the main page), or clone the repo locally.  When you clone locally, you can checkout any tag you want.

I have it installed in my home directory, eg

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/drush-ops/drush.git drush


After, you need to run composer 

cd ~/drush
composer install


I then put ~/drush/ in my $PATH:

export PS1=$PATH:~/drush/


Everything should work as normal.

Sidenote.  Even if you don't want to contribute back, tracking your whole site with git is a great way to handle dev/live, and for backing out oopsies.