I recently was setting up subversion in Ubuntu. Here are the steps I went through to do this
1) I used Synaptic package manager to install subversion and apache2.I also installed RapidSVN which is a client for subversion.
2) Edit the conf file in apache
>> sudo gedit /etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_svn.conf
This file controls subversion.
THe file after changes looks like this
# dav_svn.conf - Example Subversion/Apache configuration
#
# For details and further options see the Apache user manual and
# the Subversion book.
#
# NOTE: for a setup with multiple vhosts, you will want to do this
# configuration in /etc/apache2/sites-available/*, not here.
# <Location URL> … </Location>
# URL controls how the repository appears to the outside world.
# In this example clients access the repository as http://hostname/svn/
# Note, a literal /svn should NOT exist in your document root.
<Location /svn>
# Uncomment this to enable the repository
# DAV svn
DAV svn
# Set this to the path to your repository
#SVNPath /var/lib/svn
#SVNPath /var/local/svn
# Alternatively, use SVNParentPath if you have multiple repositories under
# under a single directory (/var/lib/svn/repo1, /var/lib/svn/repo2, …).
# You need either SVNPath and SVNParentPath, but not both.
#SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn
SVNParentPath /var/local/svn
# Access control is done at 3 levels: (1) Apache authentication, via
# any of several methods. A “Basic Auth” section is commented out
# below. (2) Apache <Limit> and <LimitExcept>, also commented out
# below. (3) mod_authz_svn is a svn-specific authorization module
# which offers fine-grained read/write access control for paths
# within a repository. (The first two layers are coarse-grained; you
# can only enable/disable access to an entire repository.) Note that
# mod_authz_svn is noticeably slower than the other two layers, so if
# you don’t need the fine-grained control, don’t configure it.
# Basic Authentication is repository-wide. It is not secure unless
# you are using https. See the ‘htpasswd’ command to create and
# manage the password file - and the documentation for the
# ‘auth_basic’ and ‘authn_file’ modules, which you will need for this
# (enable them with ‘a2enmod’).
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Subversion Repository”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd
# To enable authorization via mod_authz_svn
#AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.authz
# The following three lines allow anonymous read, but make
# committers authenticate themselves. It requires the ‘authz_user’
# module (enable it with ‘a2enmod’).
<LimitExcept REPORT>
Require valid-user
</LimitExcept>
</Location>
I used the option to create many repositories under /var/local/svn.Hence i
needed SVNParentPath. I also have limited to access to http as this is internal only.
<LimitExcept REPORT>
Require valid-user
</LimitExcept>
requires a valid user for all access
3) Create a user
sudo htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/dav_svn.password $username, it will ask for a password. Give something thats safe like “hello”:)
4) Create a project using svnadmin . Go to your svn root
and run sudo svnadmin $PROJNAME
5) Give apached write access to that project
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/local/svn/$PROJNAME
You can now access the project like
http://localhost/svn/$PROJNAME where $PROJNAME is name of your repository.
You are set now:) Go SVN
It has been one surprise after another. 
