WiFi on my HP Pavilion laptop #1

I installed Linux Mint 16 XFCE 64 bit on my HP Pavilion DM1 laptop.
It all works OK except for the WiFi which at first was low in signal and would not accept my network password. Then it didn't work at all because the interface had been disabled.
A quick google revealed that it's a common problem with the broadcom driver.

Trial fix #1 was to install a package from the Debian repository and compile it.
I added two repositiries to the file /etc/apt/sources.list
first:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
and then:
deb http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian stable contrib

apt-get update
signatures could not be verified NO_PUBKEY....
seemed to do something though.
apt-get install module-assistant wireless-tools
m-a a-i broadcom-sta
returned some dependency errors and suggested I ran apt-get -f install
who am I to argue?
apt-get -f install  (seemed to do a lot)
tried the above commands again and it seemed to go further but didn't work.

here is the web page and info that I was referring to:
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/218


METHOD 1

1.  The Mint developers of LMDE have enabled the "non-free" repositories by default.  To confirm this navigate to
 

• Menu > Administration > Software Sources.  
• Select the tab

Debian Testing Officially supported DFSG-compatible Software with Non-free Dependencies Non-DFSG-compatible Software should be present and selected, select it if not currently enabled.
If the "non-free" repository was not present, add it to to /etc/apt/sources.list  Open the file with

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and add these lines at the end of the file

# Debian Testing (currently Wheezy)

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

save and close.
Updated to reflect testing repositories instead of Squeeze repositories.

2.  The remainder of the installation process will be performed as the root user in a terminal.  Open a terminal, type su, press , type your password (there will be no response from the blinking cursor), press .  The terminal prompt will change from something like username@computer-name ~ $ to computer-name username # Note: the change from $ to #.  Also, to avoid confusion between a one (1) and lowercase L (l) commands can be copied from the tutorial and pasted into the terminal.  The key combination to paste into the terminal is

3.  Update the list of available packages. Install the module-assistant and wireless-tools packages:

apt-get update

apt-get install module-assistant wireless-tools

4.  Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant:

m-a a-i broadcom-sta

The "a-i" stands for "auto-install," meaning "download the module source, compile it for the current kernel and install it".

5.  Blacklist the brcm80211 module, to prevent it conflicting for support of BCM4313, BCM43224 and BCM43225 devices:

echo blacklist brcm80211 >> /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf

6.  Rebuild your initial ramdisk, to blacklist modules defined at /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf within initramfs:

update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)

7.  Unload conflicting modules:

modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211

8.  Load the wl module:

modprobe wl

9.  Verify your device has an available interface:

iwconfig

10.  Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.

11.   Exit the root terminal:

exit