You may wish to try ubuntu 9.04 instead or a smaller linux altogether. I had very good lck with both of those (ubuntu 9.04 and Wolvix 2.0) on a three year old cheapee Aspire with intel on board graphix.
But ubuntu 9.1 was not rumored to be very friendly with the smaller low end laptops so I did not upgrade to it. Also expanding your system memory helps tremendously.
JB