WiFi is a hazzle on nearly every distribution that is not consumer oriented. Also those “workarounds” aren’t any. That’s just how WiFi seems to work 
Even on windows those firmware files are necessary.
The Windows and the more consumer centric linux distributions have mechanisms that allow easier installation of the necessary kernel modules and firmware files. And in case of windows they are also often supported natively by the manufacturers and proper drivers are supplied.
Especially for Broadcom though, licensing is a major problem. My laptop does have one, and they do permit distribution of the firmware files. Therefore in the linux communities there have tools evolved which extract the firmware files from a windows version of the driver, which again has to be downloaded from BroadComs websites due to licensing restrictions.
As far as I can remember, I had to do the same dance for Funtoo, Ubuntu and Fedora on this laptop when I installed the WiFi on them. Only thing I had to do more with Funtoo was to activate 2 or three kernel modules and recompile. But recompiling Kernel is daily business when you start from a minimal kernel as I did.
