I run Ubuntu without Unity on both a laptop and desktop (my window manager is ion3/notion). Both work fine. Wireless on the laptop just requires "docker & nm-ap

I run Ubuntu without Unity on both a laptop and desktop (my window manager is ion3/notion). Both work fine. Wireless on the laptop just requires "docker & nm-applet &". (That was in 11.10, I'm not even sure if it's still needed.) I'm even using nvidia drivers on the desktop, though I did use some gui stuff to install them.