tried to upgrade now no kdm (no kubuntu-desktop)

[Guest]

OK so i went to upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10 and kde 4.2.
upgrade seemed to work restarted x server. but some things where not there or working.
restarted x server again this time only konsole opened. and no bar at the top. can't move the window.
i try running sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. but it can't connect to the internet. so it can't download the files.
try running knetworkmanager says it's not installed. i can get firefox to work and kwin after running kwin can move windows but the background picture is black and when i move windows it does that strange half dozen images of the window i moved across the screen. apt-get suggests doing sudo apt-get dist-upgrade --fix-missing. it then unistalls whats left of kdm and no just boots to an old fashioned command prompt. so is there a way to tell it how to connect to the internet, or to install kdm from my old 8.04 CD?
that's what I'm writing this on now is the old live CD.
So i have a live CD, and windows xp (don't think that will help but just bin case.) on the computer.
also I'm kind of new to linux have been working with and on windows for years, so i have computer fixing experience but not much linux experience.

Thanks in advance,
Tiger

Edit 1:
OK was messing around some more and found out that my ethernet card does seem to be connected. but when i try to ping my router it says that's not aloud. so I'm thinking it has something to do with the Firewall that it says it's shutting down on restart. not sure on this.

Edit 2:
OK i had guarddog install may this be causing my no apt-get from not contacting the internet. should i just remove it, or is that a bad idea. and i just need to change options on it.
Also in the live setup i have these options for eth0:

 
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:c5:53:a2:98
     inet addr:192.168.1.100 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
     inet6 addr: fe80::215:c5ff:fe53:a298/64 Scope:Link
     UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
     RX packets:6373 errors:3 dropped:1 overruns:0 frame:0
     TX packets:4908 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
     collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
     RX bytes:5026691 (4.7 MB) TX bytes:507840 (495.9 KB)
     Interrupt:17

but when i but op the system i get the inet addr :172.169.1.16 and Bcast as 172.169.1.255 .

Edit3:
OK when i first started i would run

sudo apt-get update

and it would have 0% progress on connecting to the repository's . but today the first time i startup it gets to 15% then 33% now on the last time it gets to 50%. I'm not sure what this means. also the massage it gives me when i try to ping my router is

ping: sendmsg: operation not permitted

edit4:
ok it was not guarddog. but now i can ping my router. still weird ip but when i change it to what it should be apt-get wont even try connecting. i'm running out of ideas, and things to search for on here.
also i have a thumb drive, and a ubuntu 8.04 live cd. not sure if etherone will help. i was thinking that maybe i could save the needed kubuntu desktop files to the thumb drive and have apt-get look there but i'm not sure where to download or what to download.

edit 5:
ok figured out the internet problem had to set the proper ip

sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.100

then set the route:

sudo route add default gw 192.168.1.1

and this was working installed kubuntu-desktop but it was not working triad restarting, still no kdm but when i try to run apt-get it will not connect. even after setting up the network again.
also can ping 91.189.90.217 but can't ping ppa.luanchpad.net. not sure what the problem is here.