How to to disable Git end-of-line (CRLF to LF) across all clones/machines?

The best way to avoid having to set core.autocrlf separately on each machine seems to be checking a .gitattributes file into the repository containing the single line

* -text

Or, if you have an older version of Git then

* -crlf

This tells Git that, for all paths (thus the *), end-of-line normalization should not be attempted. As far as I can tell, this should not have any other side-effects. In particular, it should not alter how diffs are generated (this has separate attribute diff/-diff) or how merges are handled (this has a separate attribute merge/-merge).

For more details, I suggest these resources:

1. The gitattributes documentation (git help attributes or an online copy) , which describes in detail both how end-of-line normalization works and the particular effects of different attributes. (Probably most relevant are text, crlf, diff, merge, and binary.)
2. Git mailing list thread Is the “text” attribute meant only to specify end-of-line normalization behavior, or does it have broader implications? (Mar 30, 2012), which expands on the meaning of different attributes, and clarifies that -text does not mean simply “this is a binary file”.