==== More stuff (FAQ) ==== 1) Want a windows GUI? We have a lot of! TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org) is the most popular. You can use it, if you want. I personally don't use it for four main reasons: a) The best svn book (Version Control with Subversion, http://svnbook.red-bean.com/) gives you a lot of copy-pastable examples of official command-line client usage. b) It is much harder to teach someone those nifty GUI over phone/IM/email. Just compare: "run `svn ci` from your working copy" "open explorer, navigate to your working copy, right-click on any file, choose TortoiseSVN in pop-up menu, another menu will pop-up, then find 'commit' command in that menu". c) Interface is not really a hard part of version control systems. Code complexity of your code is a hard part. SVN is really simple. d) some day you will need to make a small change on remote linux server with only ssh access to it. knowledge of svn command-line client will be invaluable, trust me! 2) Help me, I'm stuck! 3) I want to do some stuff not described in this SVN Basics! Check The Best SVN book - "Version Control with Subversion", available for FREE at http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ It is written in a nice english, has a lot of examples, in a word - just a perfect book! Read it! Skim it through! You can also ask your fellow developers - SVN is really popular nowadays. 4) svn book is too long, I want to learn svn tricks right now! OK, here you are - a couple of svn tricks! svn propset svn:executable TRUE [list of files] files mentioned will be marked "executable" on Linux (on all OSes that have the idea of executable bit). Check "properties" chapter in svn book! svn propset eol-style native [list of files] given files will have EOLs converted when checked out on Windows, and automagically converted back when committing to repository. Bad end-of-lines is a common source or errors - you know. Check "properties" chapter in svn book! 5) I want "RCS-keyword substitution"! Why "$Id$" don't work as it did in CVS? svn propsetsvn:keywords "Date Author Id URL" [list of files] There are more keywords, check "properties" chapter in svn book! 6) All those properties - why must I always set them? You must not! check [auto-props] section in your ~/.subversion/config, and put "enable-auto-props = yes", too. 7) How often should I commit? 8) What if I want to commit, but my code doesn't work/compile right now? It depends. If you share your code with fellow developers, you must learn etiquette. Your changes must not stop other peoples work. You can commit as frequent as you want, as long as you don't break others stuff. If, for example, you're working on some _long_ project, and don't want others mix their changes with others - ask repository admin about your private (or "feature") branch. You will get your private place in repository. Of course, you must merge your changes to main development branch ("trunk") once feature is done. Check "branching/merging" in svn book!