Hmmmm...I haven't gotten to it yet, but will try to give it a shot tonight. Without having seen it, I'm not sure about the passcode part (did you try 0000 and 1234?), but I'm guessing that when it's asking about the APN, it's just the APN for your carrier (i.e. wap.voicestream.com for T-Mobile).
I'll try it later and report back!
I'm a linux newbie too! Argh!