My Acer Aspire One netbook runs really well with the Xorg extension. Its xorg.conf has come through some extensive tweaking, including tricks from netbook sites all over the net. The best one is a line in the "Monitor" section that sets the correct pixel size: many things look much better with this in place. In the hopes that someone else might find this useful, I attach the whole file.
# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
# https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS,VGA"
Option "Clone" "True"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
VideoRam 229376
Option "CacheLines" "1980"
# Suggestion from archlinux:
Option "NoDDC"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
# Suggestion from archlinux:
DisplaySize 271 159 # Sets the correct DPI (96 x 96)
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
EndSection