I tried to reinstall ubuntu-desktop but the system doesn't happy at all.
Since I need to get this laptop going immediately, I tried to change the desktop with kbuntu.
here is the command i'm using
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
I also had to change my network setting to dhcp as well. It was using static before.
auto lo eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
iface lo inet loopback