You still don't need to configure NetworkManager to get a network connection. You can use the old methods (/etc/network/interfaces or /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts) instead.
Those are not the old methods - were they ever portable beyond debian? The old method is ifconfig. I don't care about linux any more, but on FreeBSD ifconfig still works, as it has for at least 20 years. If it becomes impossible to use KDE programs without using networkmanager, that will be a real irritation for me.
