There is literally no instructional guide on how to set up bitcoind on a server. I've tried for around 30 minutes now and I have no idea what I'm doing.

So far I installed the package.

and every single command other than "bitcoind -?" just returns with "bitcoind can not obtain a lock of data entry" "bitcoin is probably already running"

I understand that bicoin is running, but how do I know what is it doing? How do I set this up? What does this even do? Does it send funds or does it create its own wallet? What is going on?

Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance!

The configuration file reference is here:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin#Bitcoin.conf_Configuration_File

To run bitcoind you should just be able to extract the files and run ./bitcoind for the bin/[32/64] directory.

It will take quite a while to download the block chain to get up and running.

Once you start it type ./bitcoind getinfo and should get a response.