Dear All, I finally found this piece of information at the http://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne site. It says :
Note Kernel 2.6.27-11 breaks the wired ethernet interface. Bug 313866 has been verified: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/313866 Add to the information to help. Revert to an earlier kernel to fix the wired interface for now.
However, I managed to crash my laptop while trying out various ways to fix the problem. I am told by the Acer people that it is probably only a corruption of the BIOS and will have to start from putting in a new BIOS. But when I have my Kubuntu intrepid up, I will remember to revert to an earlier version of the kernel. Hope this helps others who have the Acer Aspire One. Regards, Sanjay Singhvi