I've experienced a similar issue, where the wrong network interface were selected on a laptop with wired ethernet connected and a wifi card that failed to work without extra firmware. The machine in question is a Dell Latitude D6500.
To make it easier to debug, I recently added more debug output from netcfg to try to figure out what is going on. Here is the relevant part of the log: Dec 8 09:34:15 main-menu[494]: INFO: Menu item 'netcfg' selected Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.812138] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 30 for MSI/MSI-X Dec 8 09:34:15 netcfg[6643]: INFO: eth0 is disconnected. (MII) Dec 8 09:34:15 netcfg[6643]: INFO: found no link on interface eth0. Dec 8 09:34:15 netcfg[6643]: INFO: eth0 is not a wireless interface. Continuing. Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.868043] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 30 for MSI/MSI-X Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.868256] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready Dec 8 09:34:15 netcfg[6643]: INFO: ethtool ioctl on wlan0 failed Dec 8 09:34:15 netcfg[6643]: WARNING **: couldn't determine MII ioctl to use for wlan0 Dec 8 09:34:15 netcfg[6643]: INFO: found no link on interface wlan0. Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.964368] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::radio Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.964506] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::assoc Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.964641] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::RX Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.964774] Registered led device: iwl-phy0::TX Dec 8 09:34:15 kernel: [ 60.965907] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready Dec 8 09:34:16 netcfg[6643]: INFO: wlan0 is not associated. Relegating to defwireless Dec 8 09:35:02 kernel: [ 107.800141] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 30 for MSI/MSI-X Dec 8 09:35:02 kernel: [ 107.856042] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 30 for MSI/MSI-X Dec 8 09:35:02 kernel: [ 107.856255] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready Dec 8 09:35:14 kernel: [ 119.816766] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: RX/TX Dec 8 09:35:14 kernel: [ 119.816940] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready Dec 8 09:35:31 udhcpc: Got IP 129.240.203.150 (using eth0) and routing through 129.240.202.1 Dec 8 09:35:33 netcfg[6643]: INFO: DHCP hostname: "pxe-test2-pre.uio.no" Dec 8 09:35:33 netcfg[6643]: INFO: Detected eth0 as a hotpluggable device Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): udhcpc (v1.17.1) started Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): Sending discover... Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): Sending discover... Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): Sending discover... Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): udhcpc: has been called with an unknown param: leasefail Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): Sending discover... Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): Sending select for 129.240.203.150... Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: (process:6642): Lease of 129.240.203.150 obtained, lease time 1200 Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: DEBUG: resolver (download-installer): package doesn't exist (ignored) Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: DEBUG: resolver (kbd-chooser): package doesn't exist (ignored) Dec 8 09:35:33 main-menu[494]: INFO: Menu item 'debian-edu-profile-udeb' selected The problem seem to be that it take too long for the kernel to detect the link. Not sure why. Happy hacking, -- Petter Reinholdtsen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org