Below are the recommended steps in getting started with Hibernate

1. Make sure the appropriate JDK is installed.  Hibernate Core 3.6 requires JDK 1.5 or higher (3.5 requires JDK 1.4 or higher).
2. Make sure an appropriate Maven version is installed.  At the time of this writing, that means Maven >= 2.0.8.  This is not strictly a requirement to use Hibernate, but would be needed to build Hibernate.  If you wish to follow along with the tutorials as outlined below, they provide Maven poms to get up and running easily.

The Getting Started Guide provides tutorials to help get you familiarized with various ways to use Hibernate.  See the documentation page for links to the Getting Started Guide.

If you get stuck or have questions, look for support in the Hibernate community.