Problem: setup cvs to use a local repository

You have a local repository – in a folder on your local disk or mounted network disk – and you would like to check out from this.

Solution

Setup your CVSROOT environment

export CVSROOT=:local:/path/to/your/cvs_root
where /path/to/your/cvs_root is the path to your local cvs repository.

Checkout from local repository

cvs co MyProjectName
where you have to substitute MyProjectName with the real name.