I installed the latest OS X Security Update for 10.2.6, and Airport 3.1 and rebooted. Networking was dead. The System Pref panels were dead.
After dorking around for awhile, Curt suggested I delete:
/private/var/db/SystemConfiguration/preferences.xml
I did, and also
/private/var/db/SystemConfiguration/com/apple.airport.preferences.xml
Rebooted. All of my networking prefs were gone (yay) so I reset them to DHCP and it lives.
Thanks, Curt!
Wow, ok, that’s scary.. I installed them separately (the security update a few days ago), and didn’t have issues..
Although at the time, I was connected via ethernet (problems with my vpn via airport).