If you're on a modern ubuntu, I provide binaries for it already.

wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/cgminer-3.12.3-x86_64-built.tar.bz2
tar xf cgminer-3.12.3-x86_64-built.tar.bz2
cd cgminer-3.12.3-x86_64
sudo cp 01-cgminer.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
./cgminer [commands]
plug in device via usb