Your team's code deserves one safe home that you control. GitLab Community Edition is free, and with the TurnKey Linux appliance you install it by deploying a ready-made virtual machine and clicking through web pages, not by memorising Linux commands.
When five or six developers each keep the code on their own PC, versions collide and nobody can say who changed what, where and when. GitLab fixes that by holding the source code centrally, with full history and one-click restore of any old version. You have two roads: a free account on gitlab.com, where the code lives on GitLab's servers, or your own server, where the code never leaves your office. The video takes the second road with zero terminal work, using the TurnKey Linux GitLab appliance. One honest note before we start: no commands describes the installation. GitLab is still a real server that wants enough RAM, monthly updates and a working backup, and those chapters matter just as much.
👆 Example addresses from an office LAN. Your console shows your own IP - write it down, because it becomes your team's GitLab address.
TurnKey Linux publishes ready-built server appliances, and its GitLab appliance carries GitLab Community Edition preinstalled on Debian Linux. Download it free from the TurnKey Linux website's GitLab page. You get two shapes: an ISO, if you want to install it onto a fresh virtual machine or PC yourself, and a ready virtual machine image for common hypervisors, which you simply import and start. Either way, there is no package installation and no command line waiting for you - the whole of GitLab is already inside, configured the way its makers intend.
This is the step people skip and regret. GitLab is a full platform - repositories, a database, background workers and search in one box - and its official documentation sets a required minimum of 4 GB RAM. Give the VM 4 GB only for a trial where you just want to look around. For a real small team, give it 8 GB RAM, at least 2 CPU cores (4 is the documented recommendation), and 40 GB or more of disk on an SSD if you can. The sizing guide in this series breaks down exactly why each number matters.
Start the virtual machine and watch its console screen. The appliance's first-boot setup asks you to create the passwords - for the system administrator and for the GitLab admin account. There is no factory default password printed in any manual, which is a genuine security gift: the only passwords that exist are the ones you type. Type strong ones and save them in a password manager immediately. The console then shows the appliance's IP address and the list of services - that IP is the address your whole team will use. The first boot may also offer the appliance's own security updates; accept them.
Now leave the console and open https://your-server-ip in a browser on your own PC. Sign in with the username root and the GitLab admin password you set at first boot. Before inviting anyone, do one unglamorous but vital job: open the Admin Area, go to Settings, then General, then Sign-up restrictions, and turn off open sign-ups. A fresh GitLab lets anyone who can reach the page register an account. On your own server, accounts should be created by you, for your people - nobody else.
Still in the Admin Area, create a user account for each developer with their real name and email. Then create a Group for the team - a group is the shared home whose membership flows into every project inside it, so you invite people once instead of project by project. Inside the group, choose New project, create a blank project, keep its visibility Private, and initialise it with a README. From this moment, every push your team makes is recorded - who changed what, where and when - and any earlier version can be restored. That tracking is the entire reason the video gives for running GitLab, and it starts working with the very first project.
See the appliance downloaded, the VM created, the network set and the first users and projects made - the whole route, live on screen.
▶️ Watch Full VideoYes. GitLab Community Edition is free and open source, and the TurnKey appliance is free to download and use, including in a company. Your real costs are the computer or VM host it runs on, and your own time to maintain it.
Not for installation or daily use - the appliance console, Webmin and the GitLab web interface cover both. One honest warning: a deep repair or a restore after a failure can still need expert help one day, which is why a tested backup matters more than command knowledge.
Yes, but only the safe way - a proper domain name with HTTPS, sign-ups off and updates current, or reach it through a VPN into your office network. Never publish the plain login page to the open internet. The exposure guide in this series walks through all three patterns.