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Getting started
You need to have a very basic understanding of your terminal emulator (command prompt in Windows). If you don't have that yet, it is recommended that you look for a quick tutorial on the internet before proceeding. Most essential is that you know how to navigate around your filesystem.
In addition to some basic terminal skills, you need to have Python 2.7 installed. Check Dependencies.md for other dependencies.
There are two ways of obtaining the project. The first is recommended, but it requires you to install Git. The second option only requires a zip archive extracting program, but it doesn't allow you to contribute to the repository.
If you haven't done so before, install and learn to use Git. If you're not planning to contribute yet you don't need to take the tutorials, otherwise just take them until you feel ready to begin. After that you can just fork and clone. It is recommended that you clone the repository somewhere in your home directory so you don't need to mess with permissions.
Direct download. Extract it somewhere in your home directory. If you don't have a zip extractor yet, 7zip is a good choice for Windows.
cd into the root directory of your copy of the Red Spider Project and run
./setup.py
(the ./ is optional on Windows). The installation program will explain itself. Literally!
NOTE: After running the installer you might or might not be able to run rsshell yet; if not, try whether it works in a new terminal window, or log off from your computer and log back in.
When using the Red Spider Project software you always start by running rsshell. It's like your portal to the Red Spider world. Once you're in that world you can run the other commands that were installed (at present there are only seven such commands but more is on the way). For example you could try this:
xkcd-fetch -r
It spits out the metadata of a random xkcd comic to you, possibly after downloading it first. You might be more interested in the image; it's saved in $RED_SPIDER_ROOT/work/xkcd-fetch (Windows: %RED_SPIDER_ROOT%\work\xkcd-fetch).
You can see what commands are available by listing the contents of $RED_SPIDER_ROOT/bin. xkcd-fetch and xkcd-search provide a quick help if you run them with the -h option.
To go back to the normal world (i.e. stop rsshell), run exit.
If can't get things to work, ask for help on the xkcd forums thread or on our IRC channel: #redspider at irc.foonetic.net. Those are also the places for giving general feedback. If you come across a bug while using the software or if you have a feature request, please use the issue tracker.