What the parent said. To be even more specific, network management is really distro- and DE-agnostic. For instance, Arch wiki describes a multitude of ways for

What the parent said. To be even more specific, network management is really distro- and DE-agnostic. For instance, Arch wiki describes a multitude of ways for wired [0] and wireless [1] network configuration, that would technically work in other distros as well. Most distros and DEs ship with Gnome's NetworkManager [2] but with different front-ends: distros with GTK-based DEs like Gnome or Unity usually ship network-manager-applet, and distros with Qt-based DEs like KDE usually ship plasma-nm or networkmanager-qt. Power management [3] is a bit different. There are distro-specific recommendations and also 3rd party apps, but DEs usually have their own power manager. Now, when you choose to use a DE, the choice of which network or power management solution you use is already made for you, but when you don't use a DE then you will be choosing them yourself. [0]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_configuration https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_configuration [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_configuration https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_network_config... [2]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NetworkManager https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NetworkManager [3]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management