Comment 2 for bug 180106

I think that the instructions are still going to be misleading to the average user. For most people, all they simply have to do is plug a network cable in to their NIC and then in to their router, modem, or wall-jack. DHCP will take care of the rest and they will be online. For wireless they will simply click on Network Manager and select the hotspot. They may also have to put in the security key, and then DHCP will again take care of everything else.
By instructing them to statically define the information you are telling them to take steps that are going to unnecessary and confusing in the vast majority of the cases. When they get to those instructions they won't know what an IP address, subnet mask, or gateway is. They will probably try calling their ISP, IT folks, or apartment managers (depending on where they are getting their connection from.) Depending on who they ask, they might not know either.
The guide should explain that those additional steps are only necessary in the event that they are specficially told that they need to assign their network information statically, or they are the administrator of their network and know that it is necessary.

I would be happy to write up something that will probably be make more sense to the average user, but I have an exam tomorrow and am focusing on that for right now. I also don't know anything about making diffs, so I may have to struggle through that.