Spork - Staying In - Install Ubuntu

Don't freak out -
there's loads of help out there

Get help for hardware that doesn’t work

Try out all your computer's hardware while you're using the LiveCD. Plug in a USB device like a camera or a flash drive. Does it pop up on the desktop? Can the web browser connect to the internet? Try out any floppy drives or any spare CD/DVD drives. What about sound? Go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers and make sure it sees your graphics card. What about WiFi? Have a play with everything, and note anything that seems to be behaving oddly.

Ubuntu has good hardware support built in, but it's possible that you might have some components in your machine that are a bit weird (laptops are notorious for this). You might want to go to the Ubuntu Forums and ask for advice about any problems. They're pretty friendly, and chances are someone has already struck whatever problem you've got. Your answer could be as simple as running a search of the forum.

The most important hardware to deal with is anything that might stop you connecting to the internet. It's important that you can get an internet connection using the LiveCD. If you can't you'll need to sort a solution before doing the full install. If you have an internet connection you can ask for help, download drivers, and sort out any other hardware that's playing up.

As a general rule in Linux, if you can get internet access you can get help to solve any problem you encounter. So make sure that's sorted before continuing.

Spork sez:
We found that the WiFi card didn't work, but we stuck an old spare network card in and plugged straight into the router. We can sort the WiFi trouble out later. Everything else is working fine.