Highlights from Git 2.34

Git 2.34 introduces several significant enhancements aimed at improving performance and user experience, with contributions from over 109 individuals, including 29 new contributors. One major feature is the sparse-enabled index, which helps users working with large repositories by allowing the index to track only relevant portions of a repository, reducing overhead. The release also includes multi-pack reachability bitmaps that improve efficiency when dealing with multiple packfiles, eliminating the need for a single packfile. Additionally, Git 2.34 introduces a new default merge strategy called ort, which outperforms the previous recursive strategy by avoiding performance and correctness issues, particularly in complex merge scenarios with many renames. The update also includes improvements in the handling of submodules, signing of work using SSH keys, and enhancements to the git fetch and git push commands. Furthermore, Git 2.34 provides better debugging information, memory leak detection during testing, and systemd-based timers for background maintenance on Linux. The removal of the --preserve-merges option in favor of the improved --rebase-merges option marks a significant change, streamlining rebase operations. Finally, Git 2.34 addresses terminal state issues on Windows by restoring terminal settings after editor use, ensuring a smoother user experience.