Everytime I install git in a new environment I add a few changes into git configuration to make it easier to work with.

User configuration

$ git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"
$ git config --global user.email "email@example.com"

Editor configuration

$ git config --global color.ui true
$ git config --global core.editor "vim"

Other configuration

Please add following changes to your ~/.gitconfig file:

[alias]
        lol = log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit
[commit]
        verbose = true

As a result I can use git lol to see a little more compacat version of the history. The verbose option allows to edit Git message in a default editor while being able to see the changes made for the commit.