Context for newbies: Linux refers to network adapters (wifi cards, ethernet cards, etc.) by so called “interfaces”. For the longest time, the interface names were assigned based on the type of device and the order in which the system discovered it. So, eth0, eth1, wlan0, and wwan0 are all possible interface names. This, however, can be an issue: “the order in which the system discovered it” is not deterministic, which means hardware can switch interface names across reboots. This can be a real issue for things like servers that rely on interface names staying the same.

The solution to this issue is to assign custom names based on MAC address. The MAC address is hardcoded into the network adaptor, and will not change. (There are other ways to do this as well, such as setting udev rules).

Redhat, however, found this solution too simple and instead devised their own scheme for assigning network interface names. It fails at solving the problem it was created to solve while making it much harder to type and remember interface names.

To disable predictable interface naming and switch back to the old scheme, add net.ifnames=0 and biosdevname=0 to your boot paramets.

The template for this meme is called “stop doing math”.

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    so does RPM.

    Careful. Jeff’s format gives us really great advantages from an atomic package that we don’t have elsewhere. THAT, at least, was a great thing.

    Lennart’s Cancer, though, can die in a fire.

    • 01101000_01101001@mander.xyz
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      5 months ago

      Atomic updates are amazing. But the package manager is slow as hell. SuSE managed to make zypper much faster using the same package format.

      • anyhow2503@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        The only thing that’s slow is dnf’s repository check and some migration scripts in certain fedora packages. If that’s the price I need to pay to get seamless updates and upgrades across major versions for nearly a decade, then I can live with that.