on voyage (debian based), I have /etc/network/interfaces set up similarly to;
I'm not sure how i'm meant to find out what to put for the 'network' and 'broadcast' values?? As is, it isn't connecting.
Note, the network was working OK with auto wlan0 and iface wlan0 inet dhcp, and the rest not there.

Also, what range am i meant to set my ip address-- should it be within the range of those assigned by DHCP or outside of that??

Network part appears to be fine but for broadcast part it should be: 192.168.1.255 instead of 192.168.2.255

As you said that it was working fine when it was set to acquire the IP from dhcp. You can give a try changing the broadcast address and then restarting the network.

The IP should be within the DHCP range. I have tried this before with broadband connection and it worked. I have never tried it with wireless. Also make sure that the IP that you are assigning as static shouldn't be in use.

these were copypasted from another example (although similar).. so is the broadcast ip always the same as the gateway but with 255 at the end?? (and the same for network but with 0).
If so, this isn't working for me?? [yes, i'm making sure the assigned IP isn't in use already]

Broadcast isnt allways 255.

It depends of subnet mask.

Well the network and broadcast depend on how you have subnetted your network. As you said it wlan connection I assumed that you are using a WiFi router which is acting as a dhcp server as well. Usually these routers are configured to assign IPs in the 192.168.10 network range and thus the broadcast should be 192.168.1.255.

Edit the file and make it look like following:

Restart network services and then give it a try.

Make sure that you take a backup of network configuration file before making any changes.

Little bit curious why you want to change it to static instead of DHCP. Any particular reasons?

i am setting up a music server, i want it to be accessible on the same IP always.

DHCP addresses are in the range 192.168.1.100-192.168.1.149. Subnet mask is 255.255.255.0

Chage your file to look like above. I am assuming that 192.168.1.110 is not in use if it in use then choose another IP. Restart the network and then give it a try.

Could you please let us know where this range configured? As it might be possible that just setting up a static IP will not work until the WiFi router / AP allows it.

done. Still not connecting/working. The range is listed in one of the admin pages of my router, which runs DD-WRT. I have set up a static IP before with this router (although with windows IIRC).

FWIW, my network/interfaces file also contains;

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp

and then wpa-ssid and wpa-psk (and their values). Commenting out the eth0 and lo parts froze my bootup for 1 /2 mins at
and also at 'Starting NFS common utilities: statd'.

Instead of setting up a static IP I would suggest increasing DHCP lesae time if possible. As you said that you want to make this server as music server. If you will configure longer lease time your system shouldn't be loosing the IP assigned to it.

The reason your boot up time is getting increased because network services tries to bind themselves on some IP. If you will comment out lo and eth both then they don't know which IP and they keep on trying to get that information.

i'd really like to get it set up as static.. i didn't think this would be difficult?

So what is the 'formula' for broadcast and network IPs ??