here are some detailed instructions for Linux (tested on SL5 and OpenSuse). The required svn client should be available on any standard Linux installation.
svn list svn+ssh://svn.cern.ch/reps/siddbd/trunk
should say
Chapter_Benchmarking/ Chapter_Calorimetry/ Chapter_ConceptOverview/ Chapter_Costs/ Chapter_ElectronicsDAQ/ Chapter_ForwardSystems/ Chapter_Introduction/ Chapter_MDI/ Chapter_Magnet/ Chapter_MuonSystem/ Chapter_SimReco/ Chapter_Summary/ Chapter_Tracker/ Chapter_Vertex/ DBDMain/
then just do
svn co svn+ssh://svn.cern.ch/reps/siddbd/trunk <Your chosen Directory Name>
then cd into this directory
cd <Your chosen Directory Name>
and do an ls, you should see
Chapter_Benchmarking Chapter_ElectronicsDAQ Chapter_MDI Chapter_Tracker Chapter_Calorimetry Chapter_ForwardSystems Chapter_MuonSystem Chapter_Vertex Chapter_ConceptOverview Chapter_Introduction Chapter_SimReco DBDMain Chapter_Costs Chapter_Magnet Chapter_Summary
now to compile the DBD, you 'll need a Latex installation and Python
On more recent Linux distributions, you'll find texlive and it will work finde (Version of Texlive 2010) or newer
if you are stuck with SL5 (default at CERN, DESY, etc.) you may need a more recent version of Latex, so try
/afs/cern.ch/sw/XML/TL2011/2011/bin/x86_64-linux/pdflatex
then proceed
cd DBDMain python compile.py acroread DBD.pdf &
and that is all.
More Details on Building &Editing the DBD can be found he