I installed openSUSE on an old dual P3 server and wanted to set the IP to static but couldn't. The cause was partially due to a setting being labeled in a confusing matter.

First, grats on being the first linux distro to have a successfully running GUI on this old server. I've tried several and had to use them command line only.

I successfully installed openSUSE on this machine and did all the system patches and updates that it said were needed. I then wanted to set the IP to static on this server so I could assign it to the DMZ on the firewall router. I fired up the YAST2 control center and went to Network Devices | Network Settings.

It auto-opened to "Overview" where I selected my network card. I clicked "edit" to get to the settings. It auto-opened to "Address" where I checked the option for static ip, then entered the ip and subnet mask. I clicked next and it brought me back to the Network Settings window where I clicked "Finish".

It died on me at the "Activate Network Services" line and gave me a could not resolve download.opensuse.org error. I opened a command line and ifconfig showed it still had the dhcp address assigned.

A friend of mine, John Jolly, helped me figure out the problem. I had to go to global options and select "Traditional method with ifup". The problem here is that it would seem to me that "User controlled with network manager" should be the correct setting, since I'm the user and I want to control the network address.

It would be very helpful if the behavior and/or setting names were changed. The easiest fix I can see would be to have this setting automatically change when the user attempts to set a static IP. I would also recommend that "User controlled" be changed to something that lets the user know they do not actually control it.