[QUESTION] Access to a huge GIT repository.

Hi,

I'm trying to clone a small part of a big repository. This repository contains several branchs that are useless for me. Actually this repository is the linux-mips one, and branchs are used to track each kernel minor version. That is to say it contains 4 branchs which are linux-2.0, linux-2.2, linux-2.4 and master (linux-2.6).

I'd like to clone this repository without grabbing linux-2.0, linux-2.2, linux-2.4 branchs. I tried several things like:

        $ git init-db
        $ git fetch rsync://ftp.linux-mips.org/git/linux.git master

But all tries download every objects of each branchs. I believe that's because of (a) the protocol used to access of the remote repo (b) the master branch has been created from linux-2.4 branch so its first commit object contains a branch 2.4 commit obj as parent object (let's call it the "father" object). Is that correct ?

So I downloaded the whole thing, and try to remove "father" object and right after run a 'git prune'. But unfortunately I can't find it anywhere in .git directory. I did:

        $ git-verify-pack < .git/objects/pack/*.idx
        $ git-unpack-objects < .git/objects/pack/*.pack

But I can't find "father object" anywhere in .git/objects directory. Still it's referenced by .git/objects/pack/pack-....idx file.

Can anybody give me some advices ?

Thanks
--
               Franck