Install Cake PHP

tar -xvjf cake_1.3-dev.tar.bz2

mv cake_1.3-dev caketest

chmod -R 777 app/tmp

enable mod rewrite module on apache
in ubuntu sudo a2enmod rewrite
restart your web server

open app/config/core.php change the security salt new (md5 preferrable) value

save app/config/database.php.default as app/config/database.php change the following values for default variable
'driver' => 'mysql',//can be mysql,postgresql etc., we are going to use mysql
'persistent' => false,//will be use full if database server is on different machine
'host' => 'localhost', //not necessary  if you have your db on the same machine
'login' => 'sundar',
'password' => '*******************',
'database' => 'caketest',
'prefix' => '', // not necessary

give a link on your web server to point this folder

if every thing goes fine you will be seeing a webpage like this