How to set up a GitHub Pages technical blog?

This post describes how to set up a GitHub Pages site for a technical blog like this one.

  1. Create a GitHub repository for hosting the blog source files: gh-pages-blog-template.
  2. Clone the GitHub repository created at step 1 into a local directory, which will be denoted as BLOG_DIR for the remainder of this post.
  3. Set up Ruby and Bundler locally.
  4. Install the gems required for testing the blog locally by running in the BLOG_DIR directory the following:
     bundle install
  5. Test the blog locally by running in the BLOG_DIR directory the command below and opening in a browser the URL printed when running the command:
     bundle exec jekyll serve
  6. Customize the structure and contents of the blog to your own liking. If you are new to Jekyll, going through the Step by Step Tutorial could help.
    • Search for all occurrences of the string YOUR_NAME in the BLOG_DIR directory and replace them (and the surrounding text) as needed.
· blog, gh-pages