>Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:58:54 -0500
>From: Bill Sommerfeld <sommerfeld@orchard.east-arlington.ma.us>
>
>> I guess I'm missing the point.  What would an _autoconfig_ parent for
>> Ethernet, or FDDI, or whatever, devices give us that we can't already
>> do with config's attribute mechanism, and the kernel config attributes
>> that exist for ether, fddi, arcnet, etc?
>
>It's purely a user-interface, user-convenience issue.
>
>If your first LAN interface is always at lan0, not at one of
>
>	{ae0,de0,ea0,eb0,ed0,eg0,eh0,el0,ep0,es0,fe0,hp0,ie0,ix0,iy0,lpt0,
>	 ni0,ofnet0,qe0,qn0,se0,sn0,fea0,fpa0,fta0,bah0}
>
>(this list was generated mechanically, and may leave out a few things..)
>
>then scripts and instructions for doing installation and configuration
>can be much simpler.

Well after Jason's addition of -l to ifconfig you can just use

lan0=`ifconfig -l |head`

(or something like that), which is a heck of a lot easier than mucking
with the kernel.
-- 
Mike Long <mike.long@analog.com>     <URL:http://www.shore.net/~mikel>
VLSI Design Engineer         finger mikel@shore.net for PGP public key
Analog Devices, CPD Division          CCBF225E7D3F7ECB2C8F7ABB15D9BE7B
Norwood, MA 02062 USA       (eq (opinion 'ADI) (opinion 'mike)) -> nil