Systerserver is a Debian Sarge with kernel 2.4.27-1-386
Subversion is a version control tool designed to keep track of source changes made by group of developers working on the same files.
Installing subversion in the systerserver:
apt-get install subversion subversion-tools websvn
subversion: This package includes the Subversion client (svn), tools for creating a Subversion repository and tools to make a repository available over the network using a program like ssh. Homepage: http://subversion.tigris.org
subversion-tools: This package includes miscellaneous tools that make maintenance and administration of a Subversion repository easier
websvn: WebSVN is a set of PHP scripts that provides remote access to subversion repositories. The homepage is http://websvn.tigris.org/ To reconfigure websvn run the command 'dpkg-reconfigure websvn'
Creating a new repository:
svnadmin create --fs-type fsfs /var/lib/svn/repositoryname
chown -R :stuffsvn /var/lib/svn/repositoryname
chmod -R 770 /var/lib/svn/repositoryname
And then we include all the users that will checkout the repository into the group stuffsvn.
addgroup stuffsvn
adduser gaba stuffsvn
...
remote checkout:
svn checkout svn+ssh://gaba@systerserver.net/var/lib/svn/etcweb etcweb
local checkout
svn checkout file:///var/lib/svn/etcweb etcweb
Some links:

• Riseup notes
• Subversion Homepage
• Subversion Book

There is a usefull and short subversion howto file attached to this article.