I'm a little puzzled by the reported problems with the Broadcom
wireless. I was a bit apprehensive about upgrading my older Compaq
3125us laptop, which uses an older Broadcom chip. I'd gotten it working
manually in Feisty; Gutsy had given me a Restricted Drivers option,
which did the same thing I had done, but semi-automatically. So I wasn't
sure what I was going to run into with Hardy.

Well, I didn't find any serious problems--a semi-"gotcha," but that was
all. After upgrade and reboot, it did not recognize the wifi chip and
found, of course, no networks when I checked Wicd (which I prefer over
Network Manager--it seems more reliable to me). Knowing that the
Broadcom chip had previously been in the Restricted Drivers, I checked
in System->Admin->Restricted Drivers Manager and it showed up there, not
yet in use, as did the Nvidia driver for my video (though the default nv
driver was doing OK).

To install either, I needed an Internet connection, which would be the
semi-"gotcha," if you didn't have a wired connection to go back to, at
least temporarily. At least, with a laptop, you can probably carry it to
your router, if all else fails. I just plugged in my 20' Cat 5 and
downloaded the drivers. The Broadcom driver for my chip uses the same
"fwcutter" routine with which I've become familiar, which worked fine. A
reboot later, I unplugged the Ethernet cable. Both drivers were happy,
as was I.