How to change network address ?

[Ed Greshko]

On 04/02/2012 04:09 AM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
> On Sun, 2012-04-01 at 09:10 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote: 
>> On Sun, 2012-04-01 at 21:17 +0800, Alick Zhao wrote: 
>>> On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 15:56:01 -0500, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>>>> To make ifconfig obsolete is really weird. It sounds to me that
>>>> developers of Fedora have to much time on their hands. Next I expect
>>>> they will change the name of vi. Oh, I forgot it is now vim. Where is Ed
>>>> Joy when we need him? [He was the creator of vi, in the very beginning.]
>>> AFAIK ifconfig is deprecated in favor of iproute2, which seems not
>>> specific to Fedora. See also the link below[1].
>>>
>>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifconfig#Current_status
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> alick
>>> Fedora 16 (Verne) user
>>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Alick
> Let me extend my rant a little bit further. There is no program under
> F16 called iproute2.

OK, so somewhere along the line someone misspoke or a misunderstanding arose.  BFD.

The man page for ifconfig simply states:  "This  program  is  obsolete!  For
replacement check ip addr and ip link.  For statistics use ip -s link."

The ip command is part of the iproute2 "package".  Misunderstanding cleared.  I'm not
going to back in this thread to see where the problem arose, but if it is the
documentation causing it, then by all means a bugzilla should be written.
 
> Ifconfig is rather straight forward program that can be used to handle
> the limited things that it does. It is straightforward to use with a
> limited number of options, therefore easy to understand. The man page
> for ifconfig suggests that instead you use ip with some of its options.
> ip , unlike ifcongog is a very complex program. Its total numenr of
> options and variations is mind bogelling. Therefore to get Familist with
> its use is similarly complex. If you have a simple command that does
> what needs to be done, replacing it with an extremely complex command
> should be avoided.
>

The man page is just telling you the state of play regarding and the "Busg" section
at the end touches on its limitations.  Yes, it works just fine for most people most
of the time.  Go ahead.  Keep using it.  Just like "nslookup", it is fine for most
things and no reason to go ahead and concern yourself with learning "dig".

So, go ahead, keep using ifconfig.  Just don't be surprised when/if at some point it
no longer is part of this or other distributions. 

-- 
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke
of the century. -- Dame Edna Everage