Earlier in this thread, Rounder gave me instructions on how to install and configure cgminer 3.1.1 in linux. I updated them a little bit to get the newest cgminer which plays much more nicely with the block erupter.
This page has a good overview of how to build cgminer:
http://techblog.sethleedy.name/?p=242761. Install the dependencies using apt-get
2. clone git://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer.git
4. cd cgminer
5. ./autogen.sh
6. ./configure --enable-icarus
7. make
8. sudo make install
9. sudo cgminer
If you get errors in any of the autogen/configure/make steps, it's likely there is a missing dependency that needs to be installed with apt-get.
(If anyone sees a wrong command or anything, feel free to quote and fix it. Im still kinda new to linux.)