Do you write code locally for personal use/reference? If the answer is yes, then this post is for you. For others, it may be worth still to read it.

I have been working on a set of projects for last few weeks. Today, I wanted to make some major and possibly destructive changes to the code base. Before I started to change code, I took a backup of the local folder into another folder so that I have a revert point. At this point it hit me – I am missing version control, that I enjoy in my corporate world.

I dropped everything and started to setup my laptop with the version control. I did the following:

1. Downloaded SmartSVN or TortoiseSVN as subversion client and install on your machine.’

2. Download Subversion client for windows from http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=8100

3. Downoad Apache HTTP server to front-end the subversion server from http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=91

4. Install svn client and apache. Steps are simple and can be found with the downloads.

5. Configure Apache wotk with SVN. Read the post http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch06s04.html

6. Start Apache and hit http://localhost:80/svn/. Provide a different port number in case you changed the apache configurations.

7. Create a local repository on your hard disk by using the command line “svnadmin create foo”. This will create a repository in the same folder from where you ran the command.

8. Open a browser and type http://localhost:80/svn/foo. This will show a repository view to you.

Whola, you have your code base in repository. Enjoy it!!