Please see "Starting the Quartus II Software" section of installation & licensing for unix and linux workstations (http://www.altera.co.jp/literature/manual/quartus_unix.pdf) document.
Basically, you have to fire up "quartus" binary in either 32 or 64 bit mode (depends on your architecture). The binary is located under "bin" in the installation directory (that you choose when installing). You can find it using "find" shell command. something like:
find INSTALLATION_DIR -name "quartus"
I am running Quartus II on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and it works like a charm. I am at work now and don't have access to my home computer so cannot give you more specific example... There also were tons of instructions on how to get rid of "dash", get USB blaster working, etc.
Hope it helps.
