I often boot to Knoppix 2 (the command-line) on a network without DHCP that I administer. Up through Knoppix 6, I always set a static IP address by appending the following to /etc/network/interfaces:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 10.0.0.200
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 10.0.0.1

Then, I would bring it up:

ifup eth0
portmap (I now am using "rpcbind" instead since portmap is renamed in Knoppix 7)
rpc.statd


This has always worked for me the in the past using pre-version 7 Knoppix and portmap. Now it works, but only for 15 seconds or so before the interface falls down. Both the presence of an IPv4 address in "ifconfig" and pinging reveal that. I can even bring eth0 up and "ping -c 40 10.0.0.1", then watch it ping successfully the first few times and get some "address not routable" error thereafter!

I've also tried the boot cheats "nodhcp" and "ip=10.0.0.200" to no avail. Is my procedure for static IPs out of date? Or have I encountered a bug in Knoppix 7?