On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 03:47:14PM +0200, Guus Sliepen wrote: > On Mon, Jul 10, 2017 at 01:57:08PM +0200, Rene Engelhard wrote: > > > eth0 will be kept on upgrades, but new installs get new interface names > > (that is good, that removed unpredictability if you add a new network card.) > > Interface names are, unfortunately, as unpredictable in stretch as they > were in jessie, just unpredictable in a different way. Now network names > are decided based on bus topology or MAC address. Bus topology however > is not something that is as predictable as you might think, and some > network cards just don't have a fixed MAC address. Bus topology might > change if you just move a card from one slot to the next, or as I've > experienced myself, when nothing in the hardware changes, but a BIOS > update causes enumeration to happen differently. > > At least the interface names in jessie were shorter, and you had a good > chance that eth0 was exactly what you wanted :)
I'd say the last part is the most important one: the vast majority of machines have exactly one Ethernet interface and at most one WiFi interface. Furthermore, the ones that got more either have an admin with some knowledge (bigger servers) or come preloaded (routers). Predictability is important, thus let's actually have _predictable_ interface names. The kernel default, eth0 and wlan0, is good enough for most users, why not keep that? Even just ignoring the issue completely is much, much better than current state. FreeDesktop's interface naming promised stability, it did not deliver. Even regular non-fancy x86 machines often switch names on jessie->stretch upgrades, not to mention arm SoCs with no MAC address at all (that EPROM would cost a few cents, you see...). Meow! -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ A dumb species has no way to open a tuna can. ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ A smart species invents a can opener. ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ A master species delegates.
