Hello,

It seems that this is only for etch (and sarge).  I run a mixed
Lenny/sid machine here. It doesn't necessarily work when I start to
install things for etch. Certainly not once testing upgrades its libc.
Or?

true. But when you run sid you get a newer version of git automatically.
Sooner or later. And you can always build it yourself. It's a pain in
the ass until you have all build dependencies installed and all the
tests pass. Most of them you can get by typing:

        apt-get build-dep git-core

But after that it is very straight forward.

        Thomas