I have not tried a version of Ubuntu prior to 11.10 on my machine.
The laptop will not shut down or restart. Shutting down causes it to pause at "Will now Halt", where upon it sits until the battery dies. Restarting causes a similar problem, the machine never completely turns off. The screen is still on, the hard drive continues to run, everything is still on.
It is a similar problem to an unresolved issue posted over at the Ubuntu Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1951446