Dear friends,
The ndiswrapper is a broadcom chip issue, combined with the kernel 2.6.17 enabled the bcm43xx module by default.
My experimentation was trying to load the wrapper, then when it did not work, rm the other interfering modules. This did not work.
Solution for those who use broadcom wireless(almost all dell laptops):
in order(important)
rmmod bcm43xx
ndiswrapper -i /wherever/the/hell/it/is modprobe ndiswrapper
nano /etc/network/interfaces iface wlan0 inet dhcp
iwconfig wlan0 essid blah key whatever ifup wlan0
One must, for some reason, remove the other bcm modules first, as udev seems to grab the 43xx module for the wireless card, and I presume there is some sort of tree which holds the whole thing up.
Now, onto installing....
BTW, grml-x works perfectly every time, and, once I got the internet up, everthing else appeare to work OTOB.
Best, M