Just for the record, I can confirm that Broadcom wireless cards *do*
work in Lucid and Maverick (I have one in my Dell), but you can't use
them from a live CD, partly because, as you say, you need an internet
connection to download and install the driver, but mainly because you
then need to reboot the PC, which wipes out all that effort :-)

As Broadcom drivers are non-free, I would be surprised if many distros
will ever include them by default on their live CD; it's very
interesting that Dreamlinux apparently does. However, as Broadcom seems
to have recently changed its mind and embraced all things Linux, there
may well be hope for some quality, open and free drivers in the future.

fedora reconizes broadcom cause that is what is in my dell x200

"Broadcom wireless" is like saying "IBM computer." There are many dozens of
models, and they are not the same.

In the past year or so, most people have been able to get their broadcom
wireless adapter working, if they could just spend five minutes with a wired
Internet connection. Or borrow a USB wireless adapter that works "out of the
box."

True, there are many different Broadcom wireless cards, but there is
only one Broadcom driver*, covering BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-,
BCM4321-, BCM4322-, BCM43224-, BCM43225-, BCM43227- and BCM43228-based
hardware and, I believe, one community driver covering the same chipsets.

I wanted to see which works out of the box, without installing anything.
Only Dreamlinux did and Puppy would have worked, maybe.
If they let me keep the laptop for a few days I am going to experiment with a
few more distros.