(SOLVED) wireless done broked...

TOTAL NOOB HERE...so please be gentle.

I just installed Zorin OS 6 Core on my Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop. And from what I see (still don't know what I am really looking at yet) it seems to have installed correctly. I am able to connect to the internet via a wired connection, but my wireless connection is just not cooperating. I ran 'lspci' and found out that I have a Broadcom BCM4306 802.11 blg Wireless Lan Controller.
My "enable wireless" has a check mark next to it. But it says "Wireless Networks device not ready (firmware missing)".

So...I think I need to install a driver...but I dont' know how to do that..where I need to find it? Is there anyone that can give me a TOTAL NOOB step by step instruction?
Also, is there a website or forum, whatever, that has a bunch of basic programming for absolute beginners for linux/zorin?
Another quick question? When I search google for answer *which at this point it's all greek to me*..Is zorin considered an ubuntu system? (Does the advice/information given about it apply to zorin?

so..I did that. After it scanned (when I clicked Additional Drivers) a screen popped up that said. "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system".

Open terminal and write

Code:

sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source

and then

Code:

sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

You may have to reboot.
Tell me if it worked.

If not, post the result of the following commands

Code:

lspci -nn
sudo lshw -c network
sudo rfkill list all

I have not seen a followup on the post on 10/05/2012, and was curious if it worked. If so, then there might be a place for a post to "How-tos and Tutorials" on this.
I was given a Dell Inspiron e1705, whose wireless will not work in Linux. It won't work for Zorin-OS 6.0 Core or Light, and will not work for Puppy Linux Lucid-Puppy 5.2.8 (I am booting from a USB drive using either GRUB for DOS or UNetBootIn)

I finally got it to work today, and so I wanted to share:
I have learned more than I'd like to know about finding device information in Linux. Here are a few things.
1. This machine uses a Fn+F2 hotkey to enable the wireless devices. In the BIOS, there is a setting to disable the wireless hotkey so it will be ignored. I had not been able to make the hotkey work using any Linux, and so set the hotkey off.
2. I tried using the "Additional Drivers" app in Preferences for Zorin to download the "STA" driver for my computer's Broadcom BCM4311 wireless network adapter. This did not work.
3. I used "apt-get" to get "rfkill", and used "rfkill unblock all" to make sure that the wireless card is not blocked. This worked to "unblock", but I still could not get a wireless connection.
4. THE KEY INFORMATION. I used "sudo lspci -C network" to list network devices. The Broadcom card was listed, along with the Ethernet card, but it did not have a "Logical Name", while the wired network adapter had name "eth0"
5. So, the wireless card is recognized by the computer and OS, but was not being enabled somehow.

I searched for "wireless device has no logical name" and found a solution at Ubuntu Forums (http:://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10778618) "BCM4311 firmware not working in ubuntu 11.04"
At this page was a link to a package of firmware and a driver, along with instructions for installing them. It was also important to open the "Additional Drivers" app and remove the STA driver that I had previously installed, then reboot.

Now, I can enable networking and wireless using the network manager, and I get a list of wireless networks.

So, here's a question: This thread concludes with instructions, I think, for uninstalling existing drivers, followed by re-installing a different package of drivers or maybe firmware . . . or something. Would the instructions that concluded this thread, posted in October, have done the same thing? Most of my effort went to diagnosis and following false leads, but is the package recommended in the previous post about the same thing as the archive that the Ubuntu Forums post pointed to?

Again, I think the Dell Inspiron Wireless Bug is widespread, and so a clearly labeled tutorial may be warranted for the Tutorials forum.

It all depends on the wireless card. Not all laptops have the same wireless cards. Even if three laptops have broadcom card, one of them may be using the BCM4311 driver, the other the BCM 4312 driver, the other the BCM4313 driver, so each one of them needs different "treatment".

Your BCM4311 driver (b43) could be easily enabled by updating and then running two simple commands.
sudo apt-get remove --purge bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo apt-get install linux-firmware-nonfree

The BCM4312 driver (wl) needs to enable the recomended STA broadcom driver, i.e.
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

The BCM4313 driver needs the already installed (brcm) driver in the newest kernels but you have to make sure that you remove and block all the other drivers like wl, B43 etc. BUT, I have seen that in some laptops with the same BCM4313, they work better with the wl driver...

And that is just for the Broadcom drivers. My Dell laptop has a centrino-N driver.

So I think it is better to look at it on a case by case basis.

THANK YOU MADVINEGAR!!! your clear and concise terminal instructions on how to solve my wireless issue worked flawlessly. thank you thank you thank you! oh and it was for my laptop DELL Inspiron 6400 after live booting from a usb with zorin OS 6 core...

Thanks from me also ...those two lines of code thru the terminal did the trick perfectly on a gateway laptop and an acer ..xlent