Thanks to everyone who contributed to this forum. It helped me a lot. I have one thing to add for people using method 3 (installing the Broadcom STA firmware from source using directions in the 'readme' file.)
I am brand new to Linux and have just successfully installed the sta driver using this method. I had to use this method because something is wrong with the ethernet on my macbook 3,1. If you do not have a hardwired connection this method works. You just copy the files over to your hd with a usb. I ran into one snag however.
The directions Broadcom provides instruct you to enter the following commands:
# mkdir hybrid_wl
# cd hybrid_wl
# tar xzf <path>/hybrid-portsrc.tar or <path>/hybrid-portsrc-x86_64.tar.gz
# make
For me this went well until "make" when I got the following error:
KBUILD_NOPEDANTIC=1 make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build M=`pwd`
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.0-2-486'
Wireless Extension is the only possible API for this kernel version
Using Wireless Extension API
LD /home/cade/hybrid_wl/built-in.o
CC [M] /home/cade/hybrid_wl/src/shared/linux_osl.o
CC [M] /home/cade/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o
/home/cade/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:388:2: error: unknown field ‘ndo_set_multicast_list’ specified in initializer
/home/cade/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:388:2: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type [enabled by default]
/home/cade/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:388:2: warning: (near initialization for ‘wl_netdev_ops.ndo_validate_addr’) [enabled by default]
make[4]: *** [/home/cade/hybrid_wl/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/home/cade/hybrid_wl] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.0-2-486'
make: *** [all] Error 2
I searched and came across the following link which solved the problem:
http://www.mindwerks.net/2011/11/wirele ... -2-kernel/
Installing the patch from this site worked for me. So if you don't have an ethernet connection you can download the firmware and readme from the broadcom site, as well as the patch from the site above, and whatever instructions you might need (the forum posts here and on the mindwerks page) and you should be good to go.
Hope this saves someone some time. Best!