How to manager different network environments?

[Mariano Kamp <mkamp@gmx.de>]

Hi All,

  I am using woody with a Sony Vaio utilizing a WLAN card. Sometimes I
use my laptop in a LAN which I access via Ethernet and the next day with
WLAN. On a client side I cannot use dhcp, but have to use a fixed IP. On
two other sites I use wlan, but with different passwords.

  What can I do to handle this mess?

  One thing I found is that when my WLAN Card is inserted the cardmgr
issues a ./network start eth1 (my WLAN card), which is nice, but in an
environment where I use the same IP/Routing etc. via Ethernet (fixed
line) and WLAN it is not very helpful without shutting down eth0 first. 

  How can I change the current behaviour? I'd like to call a shutdown to
eth0 if eth0 and eth1 are configured in the same way. I don't want to do
that if they are different.

  When starting up debian it asks me in which network environment I want
to work. What is that good for? If I could select where I am going to
connect this time would it solve my problem, but afaik it the mechanism
will just be able to manage different ip addresses, doesn't it?
  
  Any ideas?

Mariano