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

[Lisi]

Many, many thanks for all the help. :-))

On Wednesday 09 December 2009 20:06:39 Lisi wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 December 2009 19:11:35 Reinhold Rumberger wrote:
> > It might be due to some strange hardware, so the most reliable
> > comparison would be from a Debian unstable installed on the same
> > machine.
>
> Yes!!  But it isn't my machine!  But watch this space - I may yet get
> desperate enough.
>
> Thanks for the suggestion about /etc/rc.local. :-)  Duly noted.

Here is what finally solved the problem.  

First, I must confess that I _almost_ cross-posted.  For that I apologise.  I 
posted here, and then someone posted an almost identical problem on another 
list to which I am subscribed, and I joined in.

But misdemeanour ought not to be so richly rewarded....

I gained a huge amount of extremely useful - and educative - knowledge from 
both of you.  I now know something of how the inner workings of ethernet are 
supposed to work, and understand better what configuration and start-up files 
exist and what they look like.

Rather than give the archives a full account of what I actually did, which 
took me in all something like a total of ten hours, here is what I would do 
first another time, which I reckon would take not much more than 10 minutes:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
purge Network Manager.
create or edit /etc/network/interfaces (I would choose static IP if 
practicable)
create, or check, and edit if necessary, /etc/resolv.conf

restart network, or reboot.  (I tend to prefer the latter, but cannot begin to 
justify my preference.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reinhold's disabling of Network Manager (see earlier in this thread) had in 
fact worked for me as it does for him, but I didn't realise it.  And purging 
NM was _much_ more fun.  I don't normally enjoy destruction of any kind, but 
I enjoyed that! ;-)

Lisi