Comment 14 for bug 188282

More information. The missing b43 may be a red herring. I started a gutsy i386 install on the system and paid careful attention to the timing. The ubuntu 'splash' screen with the orange rectangle moving back and forth starts in about 30 seconds, the status bar (showing progress of the ubuntu startup) at about 80 seconds, and the system is fully up in about 240 seconds (running off the CD). The interesting thing is that gutsy reports the same error about the missing broadcom file (see copy of dmesg attached), but comes up just fine.

Timing with either of the first two hardy options (try ubuntu or install ubuntu) is roughly the same:
0 seconds loading linux kernel
20 seconds 'splash' screen shows ubuntu and the orange rectangle moving back and forth.
120 seconds screen show progress bar growing from the left
150 seconds screen goes blank
160 seconds messages start to appear 'running load init scripts' (there were more, but I can't write fast enough)
170 seconds message re missing b43 file as above
180 seconds login appears (I didn't notice this before -- also I can CTL-ALT F2 etc to bring up a login
190 seconds until forever -- message re b43 repeats

Perhaps the real problem is something with xorg.conf? The system responds to a CTL-ALT-DEL and displays 'stopping GNOME display manager'

As I can log in and look at files, is there a way to manually mount a usb thumb-drive, and or to establish a net connection to any of my other screens (hard-wired on a local network) to copy some debugging files? Right now I can look at files, but can't copy them off the machine

I hope this helps
John