Earlier I posted that I had installed Ubuntu on an old computer, but didn't really go into any detail about the hardware. It's a 5 year old Dell Inspiron 1420 that was running with the original Windows Vista (service pack 2 installed).
This poor old laptop had a couple rounds of spyware/malware and was pretty buggy to the point no one wanted to even try to use any more. Almost to the point of recycling it (or donating to a worthy cause), but thought why not install one of the new Linux distributions on it for fun. Turns out it gave the old Dell a brand new lease on life!
With that said, I'd had some problems with the wireless drivers related to the hardware on this model, the Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card. I had read previously about issues with proprietary drivers, etc. Ubuntu connected via wireless without a hitch but I always had to manually reconnect the wireless after a reboot. Researching showed several others having the same problem with 12.04 and recommended a different connection manager - wicd - but that caused more problems on the Dell because wireless broke all together.
Long story short, I put the default network-manager back and decided that the issue wasn't with Ubuntu but rather the drivers. Still want to link to an article about an alternative for later:
Broadcom Wireless on Ubuntu
