Welcome to Apache ActiveMQ. This document gives you a quick overview of how to get started trying out Apache ActiveMQ.
From the binary distribution you can run the Apache ActiveMQ server pretty easily via the bin/activemq command. If you're using Windows, just type
    cd bin
    activemq
On Unix-like systems, type
    cd bin
    activemq console
to start the broker in foreground.
The Apache ActiveMQ broker should now have started
To run the demo producer/consumer tools, you need Java and Ant installed.
The example programs depend on Ant being installed. There are more detailed instructions on the Ant website - but essentially you need to follow these steps.
To test this is all working, try typing
    java -version
    cd example
    ant -version
Once you've got Java and Ant installed correctly you should be able to run
    cd example
    ant consumer
and in another shell
    cd example
    ant producer
you can specify exact URLs to connect to via command like arguments. e.g.
    ant producer -Durl=tcp://somehost:port