This guide assumes you are using Maven 2.0.4 or later (http://maven.apache.orgdownload here)

Getting started

Before we get too far ahead, it is important to know some basics concepts of Maven. The most important thing to understand is that unlike Ant, Maven has no concept of procedural tasks that get run. Instead, Maven has a concept of a build lifecycle in which plugins (somewhat similar to Ant asks) can attach to. When you execute a maven build, you specify a point in the lifecycle that you want the project built up to. The phase compile comes before test, and test comes before package, and package comes before install.

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The main mirror of central (also known as "ibiblio") is extremely slow and can be very unreliable. Fortunately, Maven supports mirrors. You can read more about them http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-mirror-settings.html here, but the basic idea is that if you add the following to ~/.m2/settings.xml (or create the file if it doesn't exist), you can likely speed up the build process:

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