Once SVN is installed on the server execute the following.

$ cd /path/to/svn/repos
$ svnadmin create repositoryname

Change the owner of the repository directory and files.

chown -R www-data:subversion repositoryname

On the client, check out the new repository. I use TortoiseSVN so I created the directory, right click and select "SVN Checkout…". Select the repository "http://host/svn/repositoryname".