I'm using an older (L)Ubuntu, on an old laptop, so I'm not sure how much help I will be.
The Open Arena forums has a suggestion that if there are issues using Open Arena from your distribution's repositories, try using the pre-compiled version of 0.8.8:
http://www.openarena.ws/download.php?list.61 (get the Unified Zip, not the patch).
I would suggest keeping the Open Arena package from the "app store" installed (at least initially, as it should mean that the pre-requisites of libopenal & libvorbis are installed. Your graphics driver in use absolutely must support OpenGL (3D) acceleration. Some basic drivers won't.
After extracting, run openarena.x86_64 (possibly open a terminal, change to the directory where the zip was extracted and type ./openarena.x86_64 then press enter). There is also an i386 version for 32 bit architecture (openarena.i386). Likewise there are 32 and 64 bit versions of oa_ded - these are for if you want to run your own Open Arena server only.