I use both Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04, and both work well with the code downloaded from the Arduino site.
The blink code you are using, is it from a previous version or are you using the blink code from the digital examples included with IDE v1.0.1? There was a file name change in the conversion from IDE v0023 and V1.0. There was a file named WProgram.h, which has been changed to Arduino.h. That could be your challenge. Those files are where all those variable names are defined.