Ubuntu Studio missing network manager

I recently install Ubuntu Studio 8.10 64 bit on a Dell Latitude D630. The wireless would not work, even after installing the restricted drives. The Network Manager icon did not appear in the gnome panel. After a bit of Googling, I found that ¨nm-applet" might not appear if the /etc/network/interfaces file has definitions for anything other than the lo interface. So, edit that file and remove the stanzas which refer to eth0, eth1, wlan0, ath0, etc. Now I see the normal network manager icon in the panel.