I subsequently tried Lubuntu 22, 20, and finally 18. 20 almost worked, but didn't have python-qt4, and attempting to use firefox to look up instructions on forcing python-qt4 onto it froze the entire system for whatever reason.
18 did NOT work out of the box (at least not with "minimal" install), had to connect to internet to install a whole load of dependencies for armory. It claimed that it installed. But when you run it, nothing happens.
When I try running it from terminal, (/usr/bin/armory), it spits out "Illegal instruction (core dumped)". Sudo or no sudo.
I don't think any of the LTS ubuntu's come with pyqt4 preinstalled. You can either grab it via pip (or download the wheel and install it offline) or via apt, but you'll probably need to add the backport repo to your apt sources file.
Update: armory_0.96.5_amd64_gcc4.9_noasm.deb finally worked. armory_0.96.5_amd64_gcc7.2.deb was failing to run with "illegal instruction".
The CPU on your machine doesn't carry SSE3/4 silicon, you have to use the noasm build.