This could be a matter of drivers. Linux used to be worse when it came
to not having drivers or their not being available. I personally could
not read such high rez. the text would be too small. I don't know my
way with drivers with ubuntu but I would say that vide card drivers
are probably your problem here.

I've got an Nvidia Geforce4 MX 4000 and it works fine with the Nvidia
driver. Though a bit too slow and limited to really get much out of
Beryl.

I think the card you have would be too new for my system. I have a
500mhz AMD processor. The one I use now is an AGP card. I was looking
for one a little newer than this one if this is a driver problem.

The MX 4000 is an AGP card. Runs up to 8X speed.

I'm currently trying to decide whether to upgrade to a faster card for
better 3D, or build a new system. Right now I have one of the early
Athlon 64's at about 2.2 ghz.

It does pretty much all I need (I am not a game player) so I am
reluctant to invest in another round of computer building, but at the
same time AGP is a dying format and wonder if I should just go ahead
and build a computer as opposed to sinking money into a dead end video
card.

In the old days it was easy. Dad would build a new go faster computer
and one of the kids would "inherit". Now the youngest is 21, and they
are not so easily bought off. Youngest one has a 6 month old go fast
Toshiba lap top. He is not real interested in my 4 year old computer.

Oh for the days of small children with cheap dreams...

I have an Nvidia card and the right driver makes all of the difference in the
world. With the wrong driver 3D will not work even if the card supports it. The
resolution can be low for the same reason. I suggest that you play around with
the drivers. You may be using an old driver or there may be a better one in the
repositories. Not having the same card, I can't make a suggestion. You are also
running 7.04. Have you thought about upgrading at least the kernel, if not the
whole operating system to a newer version? Hardware detection begins with the
kernel. I have also found that restricted proprietary drivers give better
performance than the open source ones.

You could also try to get one from Nvidia at;
www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

I will try another driver and see what happens.