Working with Subversion without any Server is easy.

• Create a repository somewhere on your disk:

repo=~/subversion/coolrepository
mkdir -p $repo
svnadmin create $repo

• Go to your working directory, check it out and work:

svn co file://${repo}

Some useful commands to work with (all following commands do not modify the repository until ‘ci’ is used)

• svn add [file] - schedule files or directories to add with the next commit
• svn cp [src] [dest] - copy file preserving its history
• svn mv [src] [dest] - rename file preserving its history
• svn rm [file] - remove files or directories
• svn mkdir [dir] - create version controlled subdir
• svn revert - restores last revision (undo local changes)

To commit/check in changes to the repository with a message try:

• svn ci -m "i added nice stuff"

If someone else made changes to the repository you can update your local files like that:

• svn up

Some informative commands:

• svn log [file] - show changelog for file
• svn info - show some info

• dev-util/esvn GUI frontend to the Subversion revision system