HowTo:Checkout SVN (Ubuntu Linux)
This is a newb friendly guide to help people who do not want to learn deep specifics and terms. Most of this guide will show you copy-paste lines to paste in Terminal, omitting most technical issues. However, you might want to take a look at what SVN is to have a general understanding of this version. If you follow steps correctly, it should be able to work. If you have problems compiling in Ubuntu, post a new thread in the VS Forums (click here [1]). Someone will be able to help you. Note: This process was done in Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid).
Installing SVN
The first step is to install Subversion. In Ubuntu (and Debian, I guess) it is easy to install Subversion just by using the Synaptic Package Manager. Goto System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager. In the quick search box, type "subversion" without quotation marks. Select the first option and mark for installation. Every step involving the command "svn", will be using subversion.
Downloading VS
First, you must understand some basic knowledge. The first thing to do is to download the most important modules, which are the basic structure of VS. Basically, this is the game. You must download these in order to play VS.