I agree, but after finding that guy's page, I've found at least three people on the Ubuntu forums who, while they had difficulties, were able to get their cards to work with the OS. Doesn't it seem unlikely that they'd all have different versions of the card? I don't think Zoom made the card long enough to have different versions...

This might just not be worth it. I may see if anyone on Craigslist wants to trade old laptops with me. Mine isn't worth much, but I'd be happy to start over again with different hardware. At the very least I could experiment with the live CD on another laptop and see if it works.