I am quite new to using Ubuntu 12.10. All I remember while installing Ubuntu 12.10 was that I didn't check any box specifically to enable wireless connectivity.

I tried looking into the various questions posted here - most of them refer to certain commands (redundantly sudo) and things of that sort. I am quite new and wasn't sure of understanding what those commands were trying to do (the network configuration settings - showed up different options, like 'Wireless', 'Wired', 'IPv4', 'IPv6' etc -- I am not sure of what sort of settings are to be made - like for example what sort of 'WEP' settings etc are to be made.

Although I wasn't able to connect to the wireless network, I was able to connect to the internet, once I plugged in the ethernet cable.

Can someone help me with: 1) Understandng a way to see if Ubuntu is configured to connect to a wireless network. 2) If so - Getting to configure to a wireless network (setting up a new one). 3) Where in ubuntu, should I look for seeing if there are any hardware devices (such as the Broadcom wireless adapter or things of that sort - like the way we use the 'Device manager' in Windows to look into the adapter settings). 4) Reference material to learn and understand the various ubuntu commands. (things like the -lshw etc).