As flexible as the /etc/network/interfaces configuration is, many administrators prefer a more graphical interface to network configuration that may be used in a more dynamic network environment. Network Manager is most often used to manage wireless connections. It consists of a background process that does the actual connection management and has both a command line and a graphical utility that allows you to configure and control the managed connections.
The graphical utility displays available access points and provides a menu and an easy way to configure the connection. It can also be used for wired connections and can manage VPN connections to a private network as well. The main disadvantage of Network Manager is that it does not handle bridging, VLANs, or the IPX protocol. Of course, command line tools can be used to supplement Network Manager in order to configure these options, or the interfaces file can be used to manually configure them while Network Manager handles the rest.
There are other packages that provide a GUI interface for network configuration. One of the main ones is wicd. Some users prefer it as it handles wireless connections in a different manner that may allow certain wireless cards to work better, but it has fewer features.
