About three years ago, I built a blog website on Github using jekyll, now I want to re-start, so I asked Gemini 3 to help me. I followed its instructions and successfully built it.

1. Archive previous site

Go to your existing repository on GitHub.
Click Settings -> General.
Rename the repository to something like blog-archive-jekyll.
Create a new repository named sunjh22.github.io.

2. Create new repository

Create a new repository named sunjh22.github.io.
Initialize it with a README.md.
Go to Settings > Pages and set the “Source” to Deploy from a branch -> main -> /docs. (We will configure Quarto to render to a /docs folder).

3. Download and install Quarto

wget https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/releases/download/v1.8.26/quarto-1.8.26-linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xzf quarto-1.8.26-linux-amd64.tar.gz
ln -s /home/sunjh/data/biosoft/quarto-1.8.26/bin/quarto ~/data/bin/

4. Initialize the Project

git clone https://github.com/sunjh22/sunjh22.github.io.git
cd sunjh22.github.io
quarto create-project myblog --type website:blog
mv myblog/* .
mv myblog/.gitignore .
rmdir myblog

5. Configure for GitHub Pages

Edit _quarto.yml, index.qmd and about.qmd. All the new posts should be under ‘posts/’ directory, make three sub-directories ‘posts/bioinfo’, ‘posts/life’ and ‘posts/daily’.

6. Preview and Publish

# Because the port restriction, preview function is not available now.
quarto preview

# Render the full site
quarto render

# Push to Github
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git push origin main

Bonus for git push

Check for existing SSH keys:

ls -al ~/.ssh
If you see id_ed25519.pub or id_rsa.pub, skip to step 3.

Generate a new SSH key:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

(Press Enter through all prompts to accept defaults).

Add the key to GitHub: Display your public key:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
# Or cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Copy the output (starts with ssh-ed25519…). Go to GitHub Settings → SSH and GPG keys → New SSH key. Paste the key and save.

Switch your repository to use SSH: Currently, your repo is looking for the HTTPS link. You need to point it to the SSH link.

# Change remote URL from HTTPS to SSH
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:sunjh22/sunjh22.github.io.git

# Verify it changed
git remote -v
# Should show: origin  git@github.com:sunjh22/sunjh22.github.io.git (fetch)

Push:

git push origin main

--- title: "20251208-How to build a website on Github" author: "Ryan Sun" date: "2025-12-08" categories: [daily, tutorial] --- About three years ago, I built a blog website on Github using jekyll, now I want to re-start, so I asked Gemini 3 to help me. I followed its instructions and successfully built it. # 1. Archive previous site 1. Go to your existing repository on GitHub. 2. Click Settings -> General. 3. Rename the repository to something like blog-archive-jekyll. 4. Create a new repository named sunjh22.github.io. # 2. Create new repository 1. Create a new repository named sunjh22.github.io. 2. Initialize it with a README.md. 3. Go to Settings > Pages and set the "Source" to Deploy from a branch -> main -> /docs. (We will configure Quarto to render to a /docs folder). # 3. Download and install Quarto ```bash wget https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/releases/download/v1.8.26/quarto-1.8.26-linux-amd64.tar.gz tar -xzf quarto-1.8.26-linux-amd64.tar.gz ln -s /home/sunjh/data/biosoft/quarto-1.8.26/bin/quarto ~/data/bin/ ``` # 4. Initialize the Project ```bash git clone https://github.com/sunjh22/sunjh22.github.io.git cd sunjh22.github.io quarto create-project myblog --type website:blog mv myblog/* . mv myblog/.gitignore . rmdir myblog ``` # 5. Configure for GitHub Pages Edit `_quarto.yml`, `index.qmd` and `about.qmd`. All the new posts should be under 'posts/' directory, make three sub-directories 'posts/bioinfo', 'posts/life' and 'posts/daily'. # 6. Preview and Publish ```bash # Because the port restriction, preview function is not available now. quarto preview # Render the full site quarto render # Push to Github git add . git commit -m "Initial commit" git push origin main ``` # Bonus for git push 1. Check for existing SSH keys: ```bash ls -al ~/.ssh If you see id_ed25519.pub or id_rsa.pub, skip to step 3. ``` 2. Generate a new SSH key: ```bash ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com" ``` (Press Enter through all prompts to accept defaults). 3. Add the key to GitHub: Display your public key: ```bash cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub # Or cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ``` Copy the output (starts with ssh-ed25519...). Go to GitHub Settings → SSH and GPG keys → New SSH key. Paste the key and save. 4. Switch your repository to use SSH: Currently, your repo is looking for the HTTPS link. You need to point it to the SSH link. ```bash # Change remote URL from HTTPS to SSH git remote set-url origin git@github.com:sunjh22/sunjh22.github.io.git # Verify it changed git remote -v # Should show: origin git@github.com:sunjh22/sunjh22.github.io.git (fetch) ``` 5. Push: ```bash git push origin main ```