I'm running Linux, and the standard "patch" command responds that the input is garbage, while copying the patch files on top of the mainline ones won't compile by a long shot. Could someone clue me in to what I'm supposed to be doing here?
You need exactly the right revision of the bitcoin sources to use the patch. Most of the patch versions I have seen are for the "svn" development revisions of bitcoin. I think the top few lines of the patch should have a svn revision number that you can use to get the right revision of the source using a svn command.
svn -r {num} http:....
have fun.