Network manager automatically connects to networks for you, just like every other operating system wow!

Lots of pain and gotchas here

  • Obliterate every trace of netctl, netctl profiles, or any other network managers you are using or you'll get weird issues
  • Try rebooting in between major changes e.g. enabling network manager
  • nmtui is basic ui for Network Manager and very helpful for figuring out what the fuck is going on
  • network-manager-applet package installs nm-applet which has a nice GUI for seeing networks
  • My nm-applet did not come with an autostart script so I added it to my bash profile manually

Main thing is to get rid of every trace of other network manager and to try rebooting. And be patient