How to avoid merge commits from Git pull when pushing to remote

Question

I have a repository and some local changes to commit. Before committing, I pulled the changes onto my local using Egit in Eclipse.

It creates a merge commit and I submit

Answer 1

The usual strategy is to work on a branch. When the remote master changes, pull the changes to master and instead of merging, rebase the branch.

See Git Rebase at Atlassian.