Time [in minutes]: 20
Platform [OS, libraries, etc.]: Ubuntu 13.10
Skill level:

I can build complex software like GCC and the Linux kernel

Detailed evaluation:

I largely followed the instructions at:
http://hazy.cs.wisc.edu/hazy/victor/doc/install_bismarck.php

I didn't use the paper authors' provided VM image, but apparently the
study authors didn't either.

It took me a bit of path munging to include the postgres headers in
the Bismarck (paper source) build, but otherwise was pretty straightforward:

wget ftp://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/source/v9.2.7/postgresql-9.2.7.tar.gz
tar -xzf postgresql*
cd postgresql-9.2.7/; ./configure; make; make install
# quick hack so gcc can access headers
sudo chown -R ubuntu /usr/local/pgsql
cd ..; wget http://hazy.cs.wisc.edu/hazy/victor/downloads/bismarck.tar.gz; tar -xvf bismarck.tar.gz; cd bismarck;
# change path per http://hazy.cs.wisc.edu/hazy/victor/doc/install_bismarck.php
sed -i 's,/home/bismarckvm/Desktop/dependencies/postgresql,/usr/local/pgsql,' bismarck.path;
make