Network anomalies since F8 install

[Simon Slater]

	G'day all,
		I'm stuck again, but with my efforts fragmented over the past couple
of weeks I'm sure I've missed something simple.  Here's the situation.

	After upgrading a laptop from F7-8 the wired network connected without
hassle.  I wanted to wipe the slate clean, however and installed F8 from
scratch.  /etc/hosts has the other computers in the lan with 192.168.0
IP's as it had with the upgrade.  eth0 is up but wants to use 169.254.
IP's which I thought zeroconf setup but zeroconf is not running.
Network manager is running (networking and wireless enabled) and reports
connected to the wired network, network service is not running.

	I cannot ping any of the 192.168.0 IP's (network unreachable) from the
laptop, nor can I ping the 169.254 address it has taken for itself.
Under >Places>Network there is an icon for SFTP File Transfer ( which I
did not put there, nor can I delete it) which would connect to that box,
until today.

	How do I use the 192.168.0 range of addresses and get connected to the
lan?

Thanks
-- 
Regards
Simon