When installing Ubuntu, I found that the partition utility in the installer didn't work as it was supposed to. I just used fdisk with the live CD, which is the most powerful, and easiest to use.

Beware of Partition Magic; on more than one occasion it has messed everything up, and I have lost copious amounts of data because of it.

Also, being a laptop, Ubuntu may not support your native display resolution out of the box; if you're using 1280x800 (widescreen), then you may need to add the relevant information into your xorg.conf file.