Broadcom Wireless --> GO!

So let's tackle wireless first.  Then we'll do the video drivers and then move on to other progs.

Wireless shows via terminal command:

lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4

Broadcom corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315]

This http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=57056 and http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/218 appear to be super helpful.

EDIT: I updated the sources the first time I installed but this wasn't necessary as it seemed to want to update everything to Debian afterwards, so I skipped it the second time I did a clean install of LMDE but I'm leaving this for reference purposes.

Update software sources and add the following:

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

(Commands must be run as sudo)

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

apt-get update
aptitude install module-assistant wireless-tools

#Build and install a broadcom-sta-modules-* package for your system, using Module-Assistant; The "a-i" stands for "auto-install," meaning "download the module source, compile it for the current kernel and install it".

m-a a-i broadcom-sta

confirm brcm80211 is blacklisted:

less /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-sta-common.conf | grep brcm80211

blacklist brcm80211

if an entry doesn't exist do the following (may require sudo su):

#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

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

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

#Unload conflicting modules

modprobe -r b44 b43 b43legacy ssb brcm80211

(this results in error for me but doesn't seem to affect the wifi from working)
FATAL: Module brcm80211 not found.

#Load the wl module

modprobe wl

#Verify your device has an available interface

iwconfig

lo		no wireless extensions.
eth1		no wireless extensions.
wlan0		IEEE 802.11bg   ESSID:"" Mode:Managed   Frequency:2.412 GHz   Access Point: Not-Associated Bit Rate:54 Mb/s     Tx-Power:24 dBm Retry min limit:7     RTS thr:off     Fragment thr:off Power Managementmode:All packets received Link Quality=5/5   Signal level=0 dBm   Noise level=0 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0   Rx invalid crypt:0   Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0   Invalid misc:0     Missed beacon:0

SUCESS!

#Configure your wireless interface as appropriate.
connected to my wifi network and the net is up

Ok, wireless done.  Now time for the video drivers.