Sadly, wireless networking is very poorly supported under Ubuntu. Some cards work (such as Broadcom chipset cards) but installation is still tricky because manufacturers have copyrighted firmware that is only available in Windows versions of their drivers. Broadcom Linux drivers require you to cut part of the firmware out of the Windows driver in order to work.
This probably didn't happen, but did Gutsy's Restricted Drivers Manager pick up on your network card? Also, did you update to the latest version of ALSA? My ThinkPad laptop's sound didn't work until I updated the ALSA package after I installed Gutsy.
But Ubuntu runs fine on my laptop (using it now). I think Ubuntu is best suited for older computers, because new hardware takes time until developers find out how it works and write Linux drivers.