[Wine] New Linux user with installation woes

[MrNoodle]

My apologies if this has cropped up before, but a search and a look at the FAQ hasn't given me much.

I'm a total newbie with the whole Linux thing. I've currently got a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows XP setup with a wireless adaptor as my means of internet. The driver that comes with the adaptor only talks Windows, and so it won't appear to work when I boot in Ubuntu. The only way I gather I can realistically get Wine to install with my knowledge is to copy and paste an address into an Ubuntu installer (please correct me if I'm wrong in any way) and it downloads what's needed. Since I can't get my adaptor to work, I can't connect to the internet to download anything.

I've tried opening the readme file and opening the file it tells me to but I'm faced with a code in notepad (or Ubuntu equivalent) and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it. 

Does anyone have any guidance and advice for a clueless individual who's thrown himself into a relatively shallowish deep end in an attempt to learn something about an operating system he's curious about?

Thanks in advance for any help