Installing the Sakai Demo involves only a few steps. The most technically challenging aspect of a demo install is making sure that your Java environment is compatible with Sakai.
The Sakai Demo archive is available at http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/.
Once you have downloaded the archive, choose a location to unpack the files (your home directory is fine). When unpacked you will see a directory named sakai-src. Unix/Mac users should make sure that they have write permissions to the Tomcat servlet container files and directories before proceeding or startup permission errors may occur.
Demo limitations. The data for a demo installation is stored in a HypersonicSQL database (HSQLDB) that is stored in memory and then written out to files when Tomcat is shut down. These files are located at sakai-demo/sakai/db/sakai.db.*. Second, the Sakai Demo is configured to neither send nor receive email.