RHEL 8 network config borked after initial install

Took a few tries to get the installer to play nice but I eventually managed to get a basic workstation install running. Sort of. The installer doesn't understand an ipv4 address specified with a /26 at the end but a netmask of 255.255.255.192 seems to be accepted. Regardless the installer totally skipped the ipv4 config and ignored my input for address and route and dns servers. So after the first boot I edited /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens32 to at least set a manual ipv4 config. That works on reboot however ipv6 is still around and very annoying and just in the way. So I edited /etc/default/grub and removed the annoying rhgb and added "verbose ipv6.disable=1" to the kernel options. That sorted out ipv6 and now I can see things at boot time. However there is no default route. The docs don't seem to work :

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/Networking_Guide/sec-Editing_Network_Configuration_Files.html#sec-Configuring_a_Network_Interface_Using_ifcg_Files

I created a file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/route-ens32 but it seems to be ignored with this content ( one trivial line ) :

default via 172.16.35.1 dev ens32

That should work. However it doesn't. I think however the ip commands want "ip route add default via 172.16.35.1 dev ens32" but the docs don't actually say that. I manually utter the "ip route add ..." and that sort outs things after boot but the config should stick somewhere. Are the docs wrong?

Anyways I was shocked to see no "xterm" anywhere? Wow. Also the GNOME interface is horrific. Just a horror show. Hopefully there is a LXDE or similar available.