Use git -- have more fun.

Following this post, I was lured into trying the git svn backend. We're using SVN at our office for hysterical reasons and this seemed a good way to use git locally and svn as a backend.

So basically what you do is:

$ mkdir somedir
$ cd somedir
$ git-svn init -s $svnurl

That will initialize the git repository. The -s tells git-svn to assume the standard directory scheme for tags and branches, that is, below the svnurl  there should be a "tags", "branches", "releases". Now fetch the repo:

$ git-svn fetch

That'll suck all svn revisions to your local git repo.
Now hack away and use the usual git commands to check in locally.

Use something like gitNub to view the repository changes.

Enjoy :)