Well, I'm ashamed to say it, but I gave up. I went out and bought a Kensington bluetooth adapter, and it worked in Ubuntu instantly. I still ran into the same problem this guy did, but the suggestion of the first response worked for me. I am now happily using my portable bluetooth mouse in Ubuntu.

At this point I don't fault Linux for anything that happened with the PC Card. It's one that's barely supported in Windows by the drivers that come with the thing, so I didn't expect Linux support to be easy.

I do find it a tad annoying that I had difficulty with the second adapter. Still, I'm happy with it now, and I'm looking forward to using Linux.

Thanks for your help, everyone. I may not have had the problem solved, but your help gave me some valuable experience with a new OS. Does anyone have a good beginner's guide to Ubuntu or Linux in general?