Install on Debian

svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/couchdb/trunk couchdb
cd couchdb

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var
sudo checkinstall
# fix version number

sudo dpkg -i couchdb_0.9.0a681779-1_i386.deb


sudo adduser --system --home /var/lib/couchdb --no-create-home \
  --shell /bin/bash --group --gecos "CouchDB Administrator" couchdb

sudo chown couchdb /var/lib/couchdb/ /var/log/couchdb/

sudo /etc/init.d/couchdb start

Now open http://localhost:5984/_utils/index.html