... > Setting up some peristent udev rules keyed on a NIC's MAC address will > help keep things orderly for you.
I deleted the persistent-net.rules file and rebooted and everything came up properly numbered. eth0 was being renamed to eth1 previously because I had used that hard drive on a different motherboard. >> My laptop's >> r8169 eth0 appears under ifconfig even when there's no ethernet cable >> attached. That's the expected behavior isn't it? > > Sure; ifconfig will even tell you if the link is up or down. Just > because the link is down doesn't mean the interface isn't there. :) I see eth0 under ifconfig on my laptop but not on my desktop. Strangely, on my desktop eth0 does appear under iwconfig (no wireless extensions). dmesg pertaining to eth0 and r8169 looks normal. lspci -v says: Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller ... Kernel driver in use: r8169 But no eth0 under ifconfig. - Grant
