After banging my head against the wall for the past few hours I've gotten close.
The Digispark is showing up as /dev/hiddev0, and each time I plug it in I need to set permission
$ sudo chmod a+rw /dev/hidraw0
If I then type $ echo "test" > /dev/hidraw0 I'm pretty sure it sends something and the spark gets something. But I have no idea how to read.
I've also attempted to set up a php script based on php_serial.class.php that looks something like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', '1');
include "php_serial.class.php";
$serial = new phpSerial;
$serial->deviceSet("/dev/hidraw0");
$serial->deviceOpen();
$read = $serial->readPort();
echo "message spark: $read ";
$serial->sendMessage("1");
echo "sent";
$read = $serial->readPort();
echo "$read";
$serial->deviceClose();
echo "closed";
?>
</body>
</html>
But that doesn't work, I get an error that the "Specified serial port is not valid"