I don't know how to do that, I don't even know what an default online repository is. I've been at this for two days now and I'm close to tears. I thought linux was supposed to be simple?

I don't have a copy of synaptic here to check for exact instructions. If you have a wired connection, it will find the online repository. You don't need to worry about that. But you may need to tell it not to use the CD. In the menu where you enabled synaptic to use the CD, is there now a choice to disable use of the CD?

Mostly it is. This particular wireless adapter is obviously an exception (judging by all the confused discussion of it you hit in a google search).

kamon@kamon-laptop:~$ uname -a
Linux kamon-laptop 2.6.31-21-generic #59-Ubuntu SMP Wed Mar 24 07:28:56 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

Nope not that I can see, I've checked every drop down.

kamon;

I can totally relate to your frustration. I have had times like this--and worse--most of which was trying to install Windows.

Here is an interesting thought problem: For an average person who has never installed ANY operating system, Linux will--on average--be faster and easier. The reason many people don't see this is that their system comes to them with Windows already installed and configured. I just recently did some installs of Windows XP and it took about 3 times as long as it takes me for a Linux install.

suggestion:
Stop flogging yourself over the wireless for a while. Run using the wired (Ethernet) connection, and take the time to learn the basics of how Linux is set up. In particular, get comfortable with the package manager, repositories, etc. Once you are up on the curve, I think the wireless will fall into place.

Good Luck

I've already failed my college target anyway so I think I'm just gonna give up and go bed. I might as well just pay a professional to install windows back on it for me, might be shit but at least I know how to use it.

Going back to your original post, there are indeed (Of course) other distros you can try. There's Linux Mint which is based on Ubuntu and improved and also SimplyMepis which is my distro of choice.

Please have a go at these before resorting to the course of action you mentioned in your last post! As someone else mentioned or alluded to earlier, Broadcom wireless is known to have the potential to be a PITA.

In general, I would avoid the temptation to try and solve problems by switching distros. This said, it is certainly true that certain ones can be better at specific things.

I wonder which distros, if any, have Broadcom supported out of the box?

Mepis Network Assistant has default options for Broadcom dirvers.

So should I install the live cd for mepis? Like I should have done for ubuntu ''/ how do I do it?

With a Live CD, you can run the system from the CD without installing to the hard drive. This is handy for evaluating different distros. Simply boot from the CD.

If you like the distro, then you can install it.

Most mainstream distros now come in a Live CD version. Check their website or http://distrowatch.com

See my previous comments about "distro-hopping". Regardless, If you want to try some different distros, you might want to try Mint.

I don't really wanna start messing about with all different distros, I'm confused enough as it is. I put a question on yahoo answers to see if anyone knew whether mepis or any other distros supported broadcom but no-one replied Will I be able to see if any have the driver I need if I'm just booting it from a live cd though?

If a distro installs the Broadcom driver by default, then I would expect it to be on the Live CD.

If you want to test (not install) Mepis with a liveCD, you burn the .iso as an image to a CD and boot it.

Then in the grub menu there is a choice (phrased differently in different versions of the .iso) to use more ram in order to make more of the filesystem writable. You probably need that for this test.

Most of the filesystem is read-only on the CD, but Linux can mix a read/write copy in ram of scattered parts of the filesystem with the read only copy of the filesystem on CD so that it looks like any part of the filesystem is writable (each file that gets modified is automatically moved to ram).

All the changes go away when you reboot.

You could then use the "Mepis Network Assistant" (hopefully easy to find by looking through the start menu) to configure the Broadcom driver and hopefully test it without rebooting (if you can't test it without rebooting then you can't test it at all within the liveCD environment).

But most things, even if they require installing software off the net through your temporary wired connection, are testable in that "writable" liveCD mode without rebooting.

I doubt you are very far from getting the driver to work in Ubuntu, so installing a different OS (as opposed to just testing from liveCD) to start over is questionable.

You said it did a giant update in synaptic (I assume from the internet via wired connection). Maybe that fixed something. Did you try installing or updating the Broadcom driver via synaptic without the CD present (so you know it will get the current version from the internet) and enabling it etc. after whatever might have been fixed by that big update?

Yeah I tried that and more after that update, I think it was something like 277 items. If I use the mepis live cd am I looking for the bcmwl-kernal-source driver, or was that just for ubuntu?