Getting the Sources

The Learn Linux Project sources are stored in Subversion a free/open-source version control system. This is the development hub of the project. We use it to collaborate on the project source without "clobbering" each others work.

If you have never worked with a version control system, don't be nervous - you cannot break anything in the repository, only your local, working copy. This is because you will be working as an anonymous user and therefore do not have the permissions to change anything in the repository. Only people with comitter permissions can make changes to the repository. People are given comitter status once they have consistently provided contributions and demonstrated commitment, then the rest of the Learn Linux community may vote to grant this developer commit access to the repository.

If you are new to Subversion we recommend that you find out more about how to use Subversion by reading the open source book Version Control with Subversion.

Follow these steps to get your working copy.

1. Install a recent release of the Subversion client.

2. Change present working directory to where you want your working copy.

3. Issue the following command.

   svn co svn://learnlinux.org.za/learnlinux/trunk learnlinux

This will create a directory called "learnlinux" in the root of the "present working directory" and copy the "HEAD" revision of the project source to it.

If the Learn Linux community has agreed to give you comitter access, you will need secure access to the repository to be able to commit patches. Commits to the SVN repository must use the "https:" protocol. If you already have the codebase checked out via the "http:" protocol, then the following command will convert it.

svn sw svn://learnlinux.org.za/learnlinux/trunk