This process has been simplified since the original Hack-a-Day article.
Steps to make it work:

git clone https://github.com/zacwheeler/had_launchpad-blink
cd had_launchpad-blink
sudo apt-get install gcc-msp430 mspdebug
sudo cp 46-TI_launchpad.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo restart udev
(plug in launchpad via USB)
make
mspdebug rf2500
>> prog main.elf
>> run

If you run into problems with mspdebug it is almost always a device permissions/group membership issue. The quickest way to verify that your problem is one of those two is to to retry the command with `sudo mspdebug rf2500`.