I'd highly recommend to use a shell to undertake any troubleshooting, as that way you are more likely to get meaningful error messages. You could use
tce-load -i EXT-NAME to install an already downloaded extension. The error and warning messages that might show up would allow us to help. Because no one in this universe will be able to do so with the information from reply #16.
Furthermore it is not clear to which degree you have addressed the question of your hardware support. A "fluffy GUI" like 'wicd' still requires that the right kernel module (and potentially some firmware file) are present. I'd therefore recommend to initally ensure that these preconditions are fulfilled by moving along the lines of this
troubleshooting procedure (and using the information I supplied in reply #15 to adjust to your case).