Trouble getting started

I bought an Arduino Uno R3, and am trying to use it with Slackware 14.1.

On my first visit to the "getting started" page, I tried installing:

  • avr-binutils
  • avr-gcc
  • avr-libc
  • avrdude
  • arduino

avr-gcc does not install, nor did avr-libc. The others seemed to work.

I installed the java sdk (which includes the runtime) and started Arduino 1.0.2.

"Serial Monitor" tells me Serial port 'COM1 ' not found. Did you select the right one from Tools > Serial Port menu?
There is no "Serial Port" option under the tools menu.

I did see something about running stty with ttyUSB0. I believe on my system my device is ttyACM0. The command seems to work, but does not fix the problem. I tried:

echo -n "Hello World" > /dev/ttyACM0

This does not error, but does not appear to do anything.

cat /dev/ttyACM0 writes what looks like garbage to my terminal.

How do I get started? Where do I go from here?