Can't boot ubunto to Ases eee 1000 from a Thumb drive

First of all I am new to Linux and eager to learn. I am trying to install Ubuntu 12.10 via USB by to an Asus eee 1000 ACPI netbook currently runnig win xp.

Currently the 30 GB ssd is partitioned ridiculously with only 7.5 GB for the xp os. I do not need to keep any information currently on the machine and am hoping to do a fresh install and unify the ssd at the same time.

I have used the program "unetboot" to get ubuntu onto my thumb drive as a bootable.

When I turn the machine on and hit esc to select which device I want to boot from I select the thumb drive which shows as "removable dev" it just goes to a blank black screen with a flashing cursor and stays there.

Could anyone tell me if I am doing something wrong or let me know if you need more information.

Thanks