I have been using Ubuntu 12.04 for some time now and I started to get interested in the arduino open source concept ,but all the information out there discussed the problems of installing Arduino on Linux. But I decided to bite the bullet and get a starter kit with an "official" Arduino uno board, I downloaded the Arduino and Processing software, extracted the .tgz files to my home folder and everything works fine even running a basic sketch to test serial communication.
As I only know some of the basic Linux terminal commands all the information out there nearly put me off buying a starter kit.
Could someone please explain what the potential problems are as everything worked fine for me.
I have been using Arduino with Linux (Kubuntu) for several years. I can't really remember having any major problems. The typical problems people seem to have are with access rights (group memberships) for things like the virtual serial ports (/dev/ttyUSB? and /dev/ttyACM?). I would think that you should do just fine. You're already off to a painless start after all.
Thank you for your response.
until recently, a linux install of Arduino relied on a SEPARATE install of whatever avr-gcc your particular distribution of linux happened to think was appropriate. Which was sometimes not compatible with what all the other Arduino installs were running, wrong, buggy, and not even a working combination of the various tools involved (gcc, binutils, libc.)
More recent versions of Arduino for linux have included their own copy of the "standard" version of the compile tools.
thanks to westfw for your response, I think your reply should be broadcast because it's the only concise description of the problems
you can encounter installing arduino & processing i have seen.
With Linux never download from Arduino server.
Always download from Ubuntu depositery.
The Ubuntu version is the Debian version which use updated software.
thankyou 68tjs, but your reply highlights the reason for my initial posting to the forum, the ubuntu depositry would install arduino version 1.0 but i needed version 1.05 so i downloaded the file " arduino-1.0.5-linux32.tgz" from the arduino website that you say not to do but i extracted it to my home folder and it worked fine with no problems. Just plugged the "uno" in, comm port recognised
no drivers needed. 
I'm begining to think theres some microsoft "black ops" out there against any form of open source initiative :).
Ubuntu --> Arduino 1.0 ??????
You are sure ?
Debian version :for stable and tresting it is the 1.05, for experimental it is 1.5.
Perhaps you will have to update your Ubuntu release.
I confirm that Ubuntu comes with Arduino 1.0.1 or 1.03 and NOT 1.0.5 as predefined packages. I've manually extracted the arduino-1.0.5-linux32.tgz like DaveC11. All work fine except that i want to share my libraries between Linux and Windows. Arduino IDE seems to not recognize such hosted folders for compilation only because i'm able to see and load my shared files (.h, .cpp and .ino examples).