ok, i most certainly do not have the stratum working correctly.

I can login to slushes pool without any issue now.

can anyone walk me through setting up the stratum proxy on ubuntu 12.04?

the instructions are kind of vague.

i have python installed. im positive. i have the files downloaded and extracted.

these are the instructions i can find.

Installation on Linux

    Download TGZ file from https://github.com/slush0/stratum-mining-proxy/tarball/master
    Unpack it by typing "tar xf slush0-stratum-mining_proxy*.tar.gz"
    Most likely you already have Python installed on your system. Otherwise install it by "sudo apt-get install python-dev" (on Ubuntu and Debian).
    Type "sudo python setup.py install" in the unpacked directory.
    You can start the proxy by typing "./mining_proxy.py" in the terminal window. Using default settings, proxy connects to Slush's pool interface.
    If you want to connect to another pool or change other proxy settings, type "mining_proxy.py --help".

does "sudo python setup.py install" mean "sudo python ~/filecreatedforstratum/setup.py install"
because if it does... typing "./mining_proxy.py" or "mining_proxy.py --help" does nothing.

terminal does however start giving characters like < rather than the usual ":~$" prompt.

very frustrated at the moment. =/