Try Xubuntu or Lubuntu. These are targeted for lower hardware requirements than a base Ubuntu system with GNOME. If you can upgrade the hardware, adding 2GB mor

Try Xubuntu or Lubuntu. These are targeted for lower hardware requirements than a base Ubuntu system with GNOME. If you can upgrade the hardware, adding 2GB more RAM could help (with the current config, I doubt if the laptop can have more RAM). Getting a small SSD would also help speed things up.