I'm trying to install debian stable using unetbootin. The install process fails with "network autoconfiguration failed", probably due to the ethernet driver not working.

My Lenovo U350 has a Broadcom BCM57780 which does not seem to be supported out-of-the-box: there are various bug reports here, here and here, but I don't know if the fix has made it into debian (6) stable.

One discussion says that you have to use an ethernet driver from the firmware-linux-nonfree package. I'm not sure that this is correct because the BCM57780 is not in the list of drivers in firmware-linux-nonfree.

The specific question tree is:

• Is BCM57780 supported in debian stable?
  • If so, what could be wrong? Should I install debian unstable instead?
  • If not, do I need to use firmware-linux-nonfree during installation and, if so, how do I do this?

Please note: I've used ubuntu and debian loads in the past but please post line-by-line guidance rather than some cryptic abbreviation of any instructions.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Updates:

• Debian stable with non-free drivers did not work.
• Debian unstable (free drivers only) did not work.
• Tried loading firmware-iwlwifi_0.28_all.deb from another USB stick to get wireless working rather than BCM57780. The .deb file was found but the network configuration still failed!
• That's it, I'm giving up. Unfortunately I'll use ubuntu even though the Unity user interface will be very unstable for the next couple of years :(