internet connection on Kubuntu Hardy

[Lisi Reisz]

I have set up a laptop for my granddaughter with Kubuntu Hardy installed.  It 
is fully updated.

The needs are:

A UK English base for most programs and the desktop.  So a UK English 
installation.

Japanese input from the keyboard.

Wireless connection using DHCP.

The first two I have, tho' the second took a long while.

The internet connection is proving a nightmare.  I can find no way of making 
the settings endure, and no way of setting up DHCP at all.

Both ethernet and the wireless card will work for one session, and one session 
only, if I put static settings in, but although I am told that the settings 
have been saved, they clearly have not.  

I have tried installing and uninstalling knetworkmanager.  It seems to make 
not a blind bit of difference.

While it was uninstalled I tried editing /etc/network/interfaces but Kubuntu 
seems just to ignore it.  I have reinstalled knetworkmanager (which seems to 
be only an applet anyway, that links to the network settings in the control 
panel), renamed /etc/network/interfaces and left the network manager to 
reinstate it.  Still the settings do not endure past a restart and still DHCP 
simply doesn't work.

Can anyone offer any advice?  Or recommend another distro that would fulfill 
the criteria?  She needs this laptop and I have been trying to get it going 
and fulfilling the criteria since the middle of August.  She is beginning, 
with some justification, to ask why I don't just use Windows.

TIA
Lisi