Set Static IP

[JCMPine64]

I must be brain damaged in some way.  I loaded the 20160403-1 version of longsleep's xenial os and have spend 3 hours trying to set the static IP.  Every thing I've tried has bricked the board, requiring me to re-load the base os.

I fear I don't understand what you're doing. Are you trying this whole stuff only connected through SSH or do you use keyboard/display or serial console?

When changing network configuration over SSH chances are pretty high to lock yourself out. Also I would check whether the interface file's contents are case sensitive (Auto vs auto). And to be honest: Fiddling around with static text files in 2016 is a bit strange. Why not set the static IP address on the router instead (based on the MAC address) or use Bonjour (only an option if the Pine64 should be accessible from LAN only)?

Are you using SSH?

Yes

Then most probably nothing is 'bricked' but you lock yourself out. I still don't get which OS images you're using (since you said you want to deinstall the GUI and the original longsleep images are headless) but in case you've also the WiFi/BT module I would check with 'netstat -rn' how routes look like, disconnect the WiFi module if present and switch to non SSH mode (using keyboard/display or serial console).

The whole stuff is 'plain Debian' when you use longsleep's original Xenial image and it should be enough to change /etc/network/interfaces.d/eth0 the way you want.

Thanks everyone.  tkaiser figured it out:
"Also I would check whether the interface file's contents are case sensitive (Auto vs auto)."

That was the problem.