System weirdness after 12.04 upgrade - can't find hardly anything!

[petermg]

I'm using a Gateway Netbook LT4004u which worked great on 11.10. After the upgrade lightdm wouldn't start up, so I ran "dpkg --configure -a" and then it would run, but it seems like there are many things missing. When I click on the search button it cannot find ANYTHING. And it only shows a home icon down below, the white home/house looking icon. I'm totally lost. If I log into tty1 I get this message:

492 packages can be updated.
How do I update them? Seems like the upgrade didn't fully take?? Also I don't see any network manager and I don't have an icon to log off either.

Also I can't get an IP address when I connect my Ethernet, well I do but it's an ICS (internet connection sharing) IP. I had ICS running on eth0. I don't know how to make it a normal connection so I can try to do an update via the command line, or if that will even be needed. Please help I'm totally lost.

[jadtech]

if you have net connection you can do them updates right from the update manager ..

[petermg]

if you have net connection you can do them updates right from the update manager ..

Ok well I got the network working, I edited the NetworkManager.conf and changed eth0 from shared to auto. Then from the command line in tty1 I did
sudo apt-get upgrade and now it's running a bunch of upgrades on packages. Will update with results.

[jadtech]

hope it works good luck