Are you using BAMT or SMOS or something else? Don't feel bad, Linux takes a bit to get used to if you're not already using it. No worries after a few headaches you'll get it working. If you're using SMOS go to the upgrades page and he has sgminer listed with some instructions, it was pretty easy to get going and I'm no linux expert.

Upgrades page:
http://www.smos-linux.org/upgrades/