The poll and event queue features work well in Ubuntu 12.04. I think starting in Ubuntu 13.04 (I haven't tested this), but at least in 13.10, the Event Queue no longer reports events from keyboards. Mouse scroll up and scroll down seems to work but not mouse click.
More details of this bug can be found here along with test code.
http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/input-doesn-t-work-in-ubuntu-13-10/31915/view.html