I am having video issues as well. I can get the hard drive installation to
the desktop where it shows the background, but then the mouse intermittently
freezes and then if I click on firefox or system (so as to check the video
driver settings) it totally freezes). The live CD gives me green and black
stripes (very tiny, not like a plaid shirt) when I load past the 'try it
before you buy it' version. Using 10.04 on this machine to keep the LTS (I
don't like upgrading unless I get a LOT more from a new version because each
one has its kinks to work out).

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ALi Corporation M1689 K8 Northbridge [Super K8 Single
Chip]
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation AGP8X Controller
00:02.0 PCI bridge: ALi Corporation M5249 HTT to PCI Bridge
00:03.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1563 HyperTransport South Bridge (rev
70)
00:03.1 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5455 PCI AC-Link
Controller Audio Device (rev 20)
00:0e.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c7)
00:0e.1 IDE interface: ALi Corporation ULi 5289 SATA (rev 10)
00:0f.0 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:0f.1 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:0f.2 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 1.1 Controller (rev 03)
00:0f.3 USB Controller: ALi Corporation USB 2.0 Controller (rev 01)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM
Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV18 [GeForce4 MX
4000] (rev c1)
02:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)