Installing Subversion

Alright, let’s get down to it. If you’re just getting started with this, or even thinking about experimenting with it, you’ll need to get Subversion installed on your local machine, as well as on your remote server where you plan to put your testing/produciton servers. If you don’t have access to install svn on your production server and it’s not already included, you can still sing along. Revision control will work fine if you’re developing and testing locally and then deploying using other means. On to the installation using the path of least resistance…

Installing Locally

If you’re running OS X, you’re in luck. Binaries of the latest release (as of April, 2007) have been compiled and made available by Martin Ott. You can just download and run the package installer, and you’ll be good to go. Those running TextMate will also want to make sure they have the Subversion bundle installed because even if you don’t use it every day, it still comes in really handy.

If you’re into the whole PC thing, there are binaries available directly from the Subversion project. Pick them up here. I haven’t done it, so I can’t be of much assistance. But it should be pretty straightforward. I do know that the client will run on Windows while the server will not. But that’s okay, because for the purposes of this tutorial we’re going to run the server on a remote machine which will more than likely be a LAMP setup.

For other operating systems, see the list of packages available here: Subversion Packages.

Those interested in source code will find it here. Hivelogic has a great tutorial on building your own SVN for OS X…

Installing on the Server

There are quite a few binary packages available for the different distributions of linux that may be available. If you’re familiar with the package installation on your system, just look for the Subversion packages and install them. If you’re unsure how, or don’t know what distribution your server/host is running on, then try typing ‘apt’, ‘yum’ or ‘rpm’ at the command line and see which one works. Once you get it, use that command to install the Subversion packages.

We’re not going to get into installing a server for the time being. We’re going to use a method of accessing the repository from our local machine that uses SSH to create the connection and then spawns svn on the remote side to handle the checkout. This means we don’t have to configure Apache or run extra daemons. If you’re interested in getting a server set up and possibly having HTTP access to your repository and a web interface (great for public repositories, but not what we need for web development), I’ll probably try to cover that at the end. In the meantime, check out these links for more info:

Linux Subversion and Trac Server
Chapter 6 from the Subversion Book

In fact, do yourself a favor and keep a copy of the Subversion book handy (it’s free).

Ready?

Next time we’ll get going and set up a test repository on our server and make a checkout on our local machine to get a feel for the basics. We’ll take a quick look at the command line and for those using TextMate we’ll throw in an overview of the Subversion bundle (more detail later).

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