ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55
ifconfig eth0 up
thanks. that was even easier than i thought. matlab uses the mac address for verification, so when i motherboard with builtin ethernet blew up, i was locked out. now i'm no longer locked out, and can figure out the proper way when i have the time. :)
this does not always work, for instance with a wireless card using ndiswrapper you need to change your .conf file withing your driver's folder located in /etc/ndiswrapper/
which reportedly works, you simply change the line mac_address|XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX to mac_address|
I do not currently have that working on gentoo linux at the moment however it's worked for a couple people out there and it -is- the method listed for the wiki. simply bringing the wlan0 down and ifconfig wlan0 hw ether does not work with my gentoo build using ndiswrapper it seems to be overwritten w/ the real mac address repeatedly.
To make permanent in openSUSE, edit /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-*, add the line "LLADDR=00:11:22:33:44:55." Save/reboot