I've installed Lubuntu 12.10 on an old laptop. This is my very first time running a linux OS, so its a completely new experience for me.

The first hurdle I've hit is getting connected to the internet. I was able to connect via ethernet fine, but wireless has me stumped. When I click the wireless tab of the network connections, it doesn't show the SSID of my network (set to broadcast). I've tried just typing in the SSID, and entering in the security details, but this does nothing.

I followed a troubleshooter for wireless connectivity, and it told me to enter some commands into the terminal to check the device and whether a driver was loaded for it. I did this, and it appeared that the driver wasn't loaded. The wireless card is a Broadcom 1016 (a Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop), and from what I could see online, it sounded like the Broadcom STA driver is bundled with ubuntu. But there's where I hit my next stumbling block - how do I install/activate the driver? I found something called Synaptic something or other, and searched for Broadcom, but it brought up three options for Boradcom STA - .common, .dkms, and something else. It looked like I could install .common and the other one, or .dkms, but not all three. I tried it both ways, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and (surprise surprise) it didn't work.

I tried again this morning, but it's still not working. And now the wired ethernet connection doesn't seem to work, so I've resorted to reinstalling Lubuntu in the hopes that I can start again. Can anyone provide me with step by step instructions on setting up wireless in ubuntu, for a complete novice from the windows world?