Ubuntu or not t'Ubuntu

Sometimes it's like hitting your head against a brick wall... Well I as I am trying to familiarize myself with linux and the Ubuntu linux distro, I am realizing that I like it. However there is still a brick wall that I can't seem to get over. I have an HP Pavilion zv6000 that has an ATI Radeon XPRESS 200m graphics card. However I cannot seem to get the drivers installed correctly. Or more specifically I cannot seem to get direct rendering enabled... Although I can still use Ubuntu, I can't even launch a powerpoint presentation because it is really choppy. I have been scouring the forums and evidently this isn't a rare problem... if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, feel free to email me.