http://www.steelseries.com/int/products/keyboards/merc/information

I really want to use this under Ubuntu/Fedora if possible.

Your app is good. I just created a keymap for my «non compatible» Zboard Merc.
It looks like this. It is not for qwerty but it needs just a few changes. To get the last keycodes I needed to change my shortcuts bindings in gnome. (search shortcut in the menu in ubuntu-based distos)
In the shortcut manager you need to disable the shortcut for calculator, mail and finder. Remap with another key, explorer for example.

! red area (movement)
keycode 181 = a
keycode 180 = z
keycode 225 = e
keycode 166 = q
keycode 136 = s
keycode 167 = d

! 1 to 11
keycode 87 = 1
keycode 88 = 2
keycode 89 = 3
keycode 83 = 4
keycode 84 = 5
keycode 85 = 6
keycode 79 = 7
keycode 80 = 8
keycode 81 = 9
keycode 90 = 0
keycode 86 = minus

! save, load, printscreen
keycode 137 = o
keycode 138= p
keycode 107 = l

! left area (score, voice)
keycode 140 = caps_lock
keycode 148 = tab
keycode 106 = alt_l
keycode 163 = shift_l
keycode 91 = control_l

! right area (reload, use)
keycode 164 = r
keycode 125 = f
keycode 194 = t
keycode 195 = g
keycode 196 = v
keycode 197 = b
keycode 142 = p
keycode 198 = c
keycode 63 = space
! [end] gamepad of keyboard (left)

If you would add it as an additional map you can.

Best of luck.

Any help will be greatly appreciated, this keyboard is the only thing stopping me from migrating to linux

It maybe a bit late to post this but, If you run xev in the shell a small window will open. keystokes and mouse movements will be shown the the shell. My W key was diifferent also so I changed it in the .Xmodmap File

i also ran –forceError and go this
vr: 0:2:0
argc: –forceError
argp: 1
argid: -1
oxp: cc

Can i use this program or not, if so how?