convert a server to a desktop... what happened?

[Patrick Doyle]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Donkey Hottie <donkey at fred.pp.fi> wrote:
> On 23.6.2010 17:41, Patrick Doyle wrote:
>> I decided I wanted a user interface on my Ubuntu 9.10 server, so I
>> naively tried the following:
>>
>> $ sudo tasksel install ubuntu-desktop
>>
>> and, because I don't like middle-of-the-night-after-a-power-failure
>> surprises, I rebooted the machine once that completed.
>>
>> Much to my surprise, the machine now has a new IP address, despite the
>> fact that /etc/network/interfaces says:
>>
>> # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
>> # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
>>
>> # The loopback network interface
>> auto lo
>> iface lo inet loopback
>>
>> # The primary network interface
>> auto eth0
>> iface eth0 inet static
>>      address a.b.c.d
>>      netmask 255.255.0.0
>>      gateway a.b.0.1
>>
>> Does anybody have any idea what just happened here?
>>
>
> A damned package called "Network Manager" was probably installed. It is
> a pain... I have no idea how to remove it. I tried to purge it, and
> network just died, no matter what I had in /etc/network/interfaces.
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Removing network-manager and network-manager-gnome (followed by a
reboot) seems to have solved the problem.

I have to admit, however, I'm confused.  Since
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkManager0.7 indicates that NM
will leave networks alone that are mentioned in
/etc/network/interfaces (which mine was).  Clearly, it didn't, as
there was an /sbin/dhclient process running with a configuration file
named /var/run/nm-dhclient-eth0.conf.  Perhaps something changed in
NetworkManager0.8.  Or perhaps it's a bug.

Regardless, thanks for the pointer.

--wpd