Configure your computer
Before your computer can talk to the NXT brick you need to set your udev rules.
Start by adding the lego group:
sudo groupadd lego
Then add yourself to that group:
sudo usermod -a -G lego <username>
Now create a udev rules file for the lego group that you just created.
echo "BUS==\"usb\", ATTRS{idVendor}==\"0694\", GROUP=\"lego\", MODE=\"0660\"" > /tmp/70-lego.rules && sudo mv /tmp/70-lego.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/70-lego.rules
On ubuntu 12.04 use
echo "SUBSYSTEM==\"usb\", ATTRS{idVendor}==\"0694\", GROUP=\"lego\", MODE=\"0660\"" > /tmp/70-lego.rules && sudo mv /tmp/70-lego.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/70-lego.rules
Now restart udev:
sudo restart udev
Now log out and log back in to finish.
Info: these instructions are derived from the NXT-Python page