Dell inspiron 1300

[froghead]

I'm attempting to install Ubuntu on an old laptop , a Dell Inspiron 1300, for a friend of mine. Proceeded to upgrade the BIOS from version A9 to A10. BIOS upgraded sucessfully using DOS USB Boot.

Created a startup USB ubuntu installation uing the disk creator utility in Ubuntu 11.10 and selected the 12.04 iso.

Started installing 12.04 desktop version, but its now stuck on
"Detecting hardware, please wait..."
Been there for just over 2 hours.

I did notice that before it got to the screen where one can select what type of installation you want, the following message appeared:
"uhhuh. nmi received for unknown reason"
followed by some very confusing messages.
The installation however did eventually get going.

still stuck though :(
Any ideas how to proceed?

[froghead]

Abandoned trying to install 12.04 the way I described above.
Instead, I've managed to get 12.04 on by installing 11.10 first and then doing an upgrade.
11.10 does not seem to hang during install, whereas 12.04 does, but its fine whilst upgrading.:)

The only thing is the wireless doesn't work, but I'm hoping this, https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx, works;