Make sure you have redis installed and running on localhost:6379, then:

System-wide install:
# python setup.py install
# mkdir -p /var/lib/newsflow /etc/newsflow
# cp -r static /var/lib/newsflow/
# cp newsflow.conf.example /etc/newsflow/newsflow.conf
# vi /etc/newsflow/newsflow.conf (setup server info and groups)
# newsflowd

User install:
$ virtualenv env
$ source env/bin/activate
$ python setup.py install
$ mkdir ~/.newsflow
$ cp newsflow.conf.example ~/.newsflow/newsflow.conf
$ vi ~/.newsflow/newsflow.conf
$ newsflowd

Assuming you don't mess with the config too much, newsflow's search engine
should now be running on port 9001. The scraper will start scraping at the
"firstid" post given in newsflow.conf, or at the oldest available post if
this option is omitted. WARNING: If you start at post 0, it may take
days/weeks/months for the scraper to catch up with some of the higher traffic
groups. When in doubt, pay attention to the debug log at startup, and choose
a post ID close to the first large number on this line:

2010-09-16 21:22:42 newsflow.nntp DEBUG < 211 103430970 1 103430970 alt.binaries.test

As nzb files are downloaded and indexed, they will start to appear in the
database. The easiest way to see what's available is to look at
http://127.0.0.1:9001/recent in your web browser. This endpoint shows the
latest 200 posts downloaded by your scraper.