Since upgrading my laptop (a Dell Latitude 420) last month to Gutsy (code name for Ubuntu 7.10), my wireless network has been crapping out a lot.  I try to never shut down; I use suspend instead.  But one out of five times when I wake the laptop back up after being suspended, the wireless connection breaks beyond repair.  Restarting the network services doesn’t fix it, reloading the driver doesn’t fix it – Only a reboot fixes it.

So after much frustration, I configured Update Manager to install pre-release updates in addition to the standard updates to see if there was a fix that hasn’t officially been released yet.  Within minutes it said there was a pre-release update to Network Manager.  I installed it… problem solved.  It has been 3 days and the wireless network has been perfect.  No weirdness from the 100 or so other pre-release updates it’s pulled down either.

Conclusion: pre-release updates are good.

System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager > Settings > Repositories > Updates > Pre-release updates (gutsy-proposed)