First thing: does your kernel have support for the FTDI serial chipset used by the Arduino? If it’s loaded as a module I believe it’s called “ftdi_sio”. If it’s working then you should be able to see the device when you run “lsusb” from the command line (or any USB tree viewers in the GUI, if you prefer) and (assuming a typical, modern setup of udev, etc.) you should have a device file called /dev/ttyUSB0 or something…
Look for that stuff first. If your system’s support for FTDI devices is working properly, then the rest (accessing the device from the Arduino GUI, etc.) should be pretty straightforward. I’m primarily a Linux user myself (Debian, even), and also fairly new to Arduino…
OK, then probably the FTDI device is working… (can you confirm this with “lsmod | grep ftdi”?) Next question: do you have permission to access the device? (run “groups” under your regular user account and see if you are in group “dialout”) There are, I understand, cleaner ways of granting yourself access to the device by configuring udev and whatever, but I’ve never quite figured them out… Adding yourself to the “dialout” group if you’re not already in it is an easier way…
Posting to this older thread because I am having the same issue and I’ve tried everything mentioned here. using arduino0022 on debian. I am a novice user for both linux and microelectronics.