autocrlf and git manual

Hi all. I'm just starting with git. Downloaded the msysgit 1.5.5 for windows, and tried to work through the manual from http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html.

The first step was to clone an existing repository. I had trouble because I'm behind a proxy. Is it worth putting a short section in the manual describing how the proxy should be set? In the Git Bash, I tried using $ git config --global http.proxy proxyname:port but it didn't work. So I tried $ git config --global http.proxy http://proxyname:port that didn't work. I tried $ export http_proxy=http://proxyname:port and this time it (the clone) did work.

Then, I went on to the second subsection of the manual, How to check out a different version of the project. The command $ git checkout -b new v0.2 failed with: error: Entry 'org.spearce.egit-feature/.settings/org.eclipse.core.runtime.prefs' not uptodate. Cannot merge.

After some searching, I found roughly what this message means. Noticing a suggestion elsewhere in the manual advice to try gitk, I discovered that there were "Local uncommitted changes, not checked into index" as suggested by the error. But I hadn't made any changes. I remembered the release notes from the installation procedure warning me of an autocrlf issue that had changed recently. The diff aspect of gitk didn't really demonstrate whether this was the issue, but I tried removing the repository, setting core.autocrlf false, and then cloning it again. This time, gitk didn't identify any local uncommitted changes, and creating a new branch worked. Perhaps it would be good if the manual could help windows newbies out by providing a hint here - otherwise they're likely to be discouraged away from git.

I didn't see any contact details in the manual or on the web site. I'd be happy to contribute text if that helps: Is there a markup language? Who is the editor?

Thanks,

John.