I have linux loaded on my laptop, and the problem is this. Sometimes I turn on my laptop and a few minutes later I plug in the network cord. At this point I have to log into root and restart the network service either thru a gui or the prompt. This is annoying for me and I'm wondering if there is a script or something that will detect whether a physical disconnect has occured. I know windows xp has this feature,so it must be possible. If its not possible in the short run, then is there a way to set permissions so a single user has the ability to restart the network service. Thanks in advance.

Connect/Disconnect is automatically detected in Mandrake 10. If I remember correctly, it is related to a module named "mii" that should be a require of your network driver module. In Mandrake, the /etc/sysconfig/... files state that the network adapter is MII-aware, and then a daemon is started, that does autodetection. I don't remember how this daemon is called. You can track this down from the /etc/rc.d/init.d/network script.

Yves.