You should not have to do a SVN checkout.
You can create a startup project with a maven archetype, type:
mvn archetype:generate
-DarchetypeRepository=http://maven.onehippo.com/maven2
-DarchetypeGroupId=org.onehippo.cms7
-DarchetypeArtifactId=hippo-archetype-website
-DarchetypeVersion=1.07.06
then you can
mvn install
and to start your project
mvn -P cargo.run
or to avoid to start from a fresh repository everytime
mvn -P cargo.run -Drepo.path=/home/usr/myrepo
This is all explained here: http://www.onehippo.org/7_8/trails/developer-trail/hippo-baby-steps.html