Question

How do I:

1. Create a local branch from another branch (via git branch or git checkout -b).

2. Push the local branch
   to the remote repository (i.e. publish), but make it
   trackable so that git pull and git push will work.

Answer 1

In Git 1.7.0 and later, you can checkout a new branch:

git checkout -b <branch>

Edit files, add and commit. Then push with the -u (short for --set-upstream) option:

git push -u origin <branch>

Git will set up the tracking information during the push.