Ubuntu 8.10 and Static IP

I just installed Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and had a very interesting time trying to configure a static IP address. There are plenty of discussions on the forums about how this doesn't just work with the standard Network Manager. And you can't just edit /etc/network/interfaces because that is ignored when you have Network Manager installed.

To make it work, I followed this procedure:

First, remove the Network Manager packages:

sudo apt-get remove network-manager
sudo apt-get remove gnome-netstatus-applet

Now you'll have to manually set an IP so that you can connect to the Internet (modify this to be appropriate to your setup):

sudo ifconfig eth0 10.x.x.y netmask 255.255.255.0
sudo ip route add default via 10.x.x.1
sudo vi /etc/resolv.conf

Set nameserver 10.x.x.z appropriately. Next install the old gnome network admin tool:

sudo apt-get install gnome-network-admin

Finally use the old GUI to set networking configuration:

network-admin

This will store the network configuration in /etc/network/interfaces where it belongs. And it seems to work when you reboot. I'll keep it this way until Network Manager is fixed.