I installed/configured squid on a machine last year with 0 linux knowhow. Only advice I can give is be patient and don't give up on it. Would give you some good links but all the papers I used/printed out and my files are at my HS.
Hmm one think I did just think of though. I forget which database system you use for it (I think it's a db system) but it's up to v2.something. For squid you must use a 1.3 version or something like that.