# With First, with lab machines having multiple NICs (usually one machine out of each 'pod' of four): if you configure Linux to start both eth0 and eth1 at boot, both using DHCP and not bound to a specific MAC address, then you'll almost always get a network connection at startup as you move from PC to PC. To repeat: do not bind the NIC to a MAC address

# The other thing Second, remember that varies between the lab systems is the video card; most is different in some labs. Most modern Linux distros will automatically pick up the change and run a configuration utility. To avoid having the driver-change utility popup, set the video driver to "vesa" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf (you. You'll sacrifice some video performance for universal compatibility)this way.