How to set up static IP in 12.04 and avoid these start-up delays?

[Avi Greenbury]

Chris Green wrote:
> I have just upgraded a little server system from Ubuntu Server 10.04 to
> Ubuntu Server 12.04, the upgrade went fairly smoothly and it's basically
> all working OK.
> 
> However there is a very annoying delay has appeared in the boot
> sequence, while the moving dots display during startup two messages
> appear:-
> 
>     Waiting for network configuration...
>     [waits for 40 seconds]
>     Waiting up to 60 more seconds for network configuration...
>     [waits for 60 secodns]
> 
> ... and then the system finally starts up.

Is this system running a GUI? I had this problem when I configured my
interfaces in /etc/network/interfaces and also had network-manager
running.

-- 
Avi