This is a very generic set of instruction to get one started with SVN. The setup environment is assumed as Linux. To be precise, this should work for Ubuntu.
Make sure you have the required svn libraries and svnadmin tool installed.
Execute the following as a super user:
mkdir /usr/local/svn
mkdir /usr/local/svn/repo
mkdir /usr/local/svn/repo/trunk
mkdir /usr/local/svn/repo/branches
mkdir /usr/local/svn/repo/tags
Set appropriate user-group permissions.
svnadmin create /usr/local/svn/repo
svn import /complete-path-to-source-dir file:///usr/local/svn/repo/trunk/project-name -m "initial import"
Change to your local web root directory or where ever you intend to create the checked out instance from your SVN repository. Make sure your have appropriate write permissions in the destination folder.
svn checkout file:///usr/local/svn/repo/trunk/project-name dest-folder-name
Thats it! You are done!
Additional Reference: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn-book.html