With that in mind, I will advice that you don't take anyone's offer to hold your coins for you! You mentioned you're not a noob, so I trust that you'll easily distinguish an honest helper on IRC from someone trying to rip you off. It should not be too complicated to get your wallet setup & running.
I made him the offer to transfer the coins for him in like several batches, no worry to loose coins that way. He's panicking, and not listening in. In about a year from this the world will have another linux expert that can install anything.
Today, has at least one more person willing to learn Unix, so this is actually a good day.
My apologies. I was caught up getting help setting up a wallet which I was finally able to do. I would have taken you up otherwise, although the withdrawal on mintpal is only set up to withdrawal all or nothing. Regardless, XMR is one of the coins mintpal lists as having "issues" so withdrawals are also delayed. Yes, I was in a bit of a panic.