rThe USB networking may be already built into the Linux kernel, as opposed to loadable as a module.
(That might explain the conflicts.)
If it is supported, I think you would get a similar log notice as here, except it would happen at boot in your case, as opposed to when the module is loaded:
# dmesg | grep usb0
usb0: MAC CA:79:8D:D4:F8:14
i.e. the MAC address was assigned to a usb0 interface before any ifconfig command was issued.
Then you can do a ping after the ifconfig.
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I neglected to mention that vnc is inherently insecure.
http://www.mit.edu/~avp/lqcd/ssh-vnc.html
So even if you try to never connect your Kobo to insecure networks, hosts, USB devices, etc., your host vnc server you are connecting to is still a security vulnerability. I would not use this host for anything critical. I would set a firewall and have the vnc server be read-only.
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