I work with software that is kept in svn for version control. I would like to use git (git-svn) however the software requires lots of setup and configuration before it can be used. There are tools that take care of all of the setup, including checking out all the code via svn.
All the documentation for git-svn (I've been able to find) requires a fresh checkout, using git-svn.
Is there a way to convert an existing svn checkout so it can use git-svn?
No. A git-svn clone converts the entire repository into git. SVN checkouts do not have the entire repository and so cannot be cloned from. This is the primary advantage of switching from SVN or CVS to a distributed system (like git).