>It would be really nice if there were a way to have the system pick a strategy
>on boot.

>Proposal:  'etcswitch'.  There would be directories /etc/switch/foo, and

Sounds good, but perhaps overkill?

I have the same issue with my laptop and I just have an /etc/net 
script to change config.  When the machine boots it uses the most
recent config.  You can run:

net stop	stop all network dependent stuff
net start	re-start with previous config
net foo

	This is the interesting one.  It will undo the previous config
	by running
 
        /etc/rc.sh -v /etc/net-$LNET.d:K:stop /etc/net.d:K:stop /etc/net-$OS.d:K
	
	then starts the new config using

        /etc/rc.sh -v /etc/net-$OS.d:S:start /etc/net-$NET.d:S:start /etc/net.d:S:start

The start/stop scripts in /etc/net*.d handle OS specific, config specific
and general network related frobbing.   It takes care of

ifconfig, routes, aliases and sendmail, resolv.conf, nfs mounts, 
printer queues etc.

The above sounds messy - but was easy enough given that most of the
components already existed.

DHCP where available might make much of the above redundant
but most places I've taken my notbook, there is either no DHCP
or no network (until I need to fire up pppd).

--sjg