I also cannot get onto the net and when I tried to automatically configure the DHCP, it comes back with an error
If you do a ifconfig in the console and see eth0, then your nic is detected. It probably does not have an IP address assigned by your Modem/Router. I've run into that problem with older Knoppix versions, which didn't like Linksys DHCP for some reason. To fix manually, type netcardconfig and enter the IP settings by hand. You'll need to know your DNS IP addresses though.