Static IP addresses fail!

[don fisher]

I am currently running Ubuntu 10.10 with no end of problems. How does 
one assign a static IP address. I have tried the standard network 
manager and WICD, all with no success. This used to be easy 10 years 
ago! In Redhat-9 you just edited the interface description files and it 
was done. Now they have made it so easy I can find no options!

Any help would be appreciated. Sorry for the attitude, but it has been a 
long day trying to accomplish a trivial operation.

Don