You know, we REALLY need a newbie mining guide. I haven't seen any decent ones.
there's a difference between linux newbie and bitcoin newbie
Here's an ubuntu 11.04 guide (no need to be running the latest ubuntu, it will cause you more trouble than is worth ATM)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7514.0BAMT is the easiest though. Just stick it on a drive, ssh in, change the password and edit 2 config files and then just start mining.