PARTLY SOLVED Re: ethernet connections in Karmic - how do I tame network manager?

[Tom H]

>> Or rather, you can't "just uninstall" NM, but you can use
>> /etc/network/interfaces to override it. NM won't pick up devices
>> listed there.
>> I'm not sure if this still works, but it used to be possible to
>> create /etc/default/NetworkManager and
>> /etc/default/NetworkManagerDispatcher containing simply "exit 0".
>> This would disable NM completely.

> Not only did Network Manager continue to interfere in devices listed
> in /etc/network/interfaces, it kept rewriting the files, both
> in /etc/network/interfaces and in /etc/resolve.conf. So I still could not
> connect.

> I then added /etc/default/NetworkManager and
>  /etc/default/NetworkManagerDispatcher as advised here - and bingo! I had a
> sort of lift-off.

> This box can now get on-line.  Network manager has stopped rewriting the files
> as soon as I have finished saving them.  So far, so good.  But... the
> connection is not started automatically.  It has to be started manually each
> time the system is either rebooted or shutdown.

> So Network Mangler is obviously still interfering in some way with a crucial
> file.

NM does not modify /e/n/i. That is one of my main complaints about it...

Do you have "auto" lines for your nics?

my /e/n/i:

***start***

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid xxx
wpa-psk xxx

***end***

(I assume that /etc/init/networking.conf is present and unmodified to
run "ifup -a" at boot)