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Comment by PuercoPop | Hacker News Reader

But that doesn't mean that alongside the warning the computer can't try to get a new IP address by itself, even if it won't fix the problem 100% of the time.

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No. If something is wrong with the current network config, don't automatically muck around with it so that I can't troubleshoot the problem myself. It's important to understand the current state to figure out how you got into that broken state; kind of like a breakpoint at the first exception. Automatically renewing is like 'On Error Goto Next'.

That said, I agree that it should suggest renewing the DHCP lease.

Well if the current network config is set to simply use DHCP, then renewing DHCP is a pretty safe move.

If the DHCP is set to serve a static IP for the MAC, the problem will presist, if the DHCP server is dynamic it will just do what its desgined to do and assign a unused address fixing the problem while not changing the network configuration at all.

For good product usability, being proactive, and getting 80% of the use cases right is much more important than being making no mistake and shift the decision (and blame) to the user. Especially since most of the time the user has no technical background to make the correct decisions. I used to think like you until I read The Inmates are running the Assylum[0]. I still do for my personal workflow (that is why I prefer archlinux to ubuntu), but I try to be proactive in the error catching in the software I write.

[0]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum/dp/0672...

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