Title: Adventures in Linux-in
By: TeraDyne
Date: 2021-02-25

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 One thing I will openly admit is that, no matter what OS, I love a good
command line interface (CLI). Especially if there are plenty of well-made Text
User Interface (TUI) applications that I can use. That's part of why going back
to Windows 7 kinda hurt. I love the OS, but post-MSDOS `cmd.exe` just isn't a
good substitution for a *nix terminal. Even PowerShell is mostly lacking in
that regard.

 On Linux, I usually run with a good number of CLI and TUI tools for what I
work on at any one time.

* Wordgrinder (word processor)
* Neoleo (spreadsheet)
* GNU nano (basic text editing)
* GNU Emacs (advanced text editor OS)
* cmus (music jukebox)
* mplayer (streams and basic media player)
* lynx (text web browser)
* newsboat (RSS reader)
* mutt (email client)
* toot (Mastodon client)
* turses (Twitter client)
* twtxt (plaintext-based social network)
* weechat (IRC client)
* gomuks (Matrix client)
* less (text/PDF reader)
* epr (epub reader)
* pandoc (document converter)

 I would say I also use `cordless` for Discord[1], but they ban anyone using a
third-party client, so I had to drop that one.

 That aside, I basically live in a terminal most of the time. Hell, I'm
writing this blog post in `nano`, in `gnome-terminal`. And because of this, I
really wanted to stick to a flavor of Linux.

 I went with my usual standby of Ubuntu at first, but my laptop has always had
"issues" with it. It's a Dell Latitude E6430, with an nVidia /Optimus/ setup
using both an nVidia NVS 5200M GPU, and an Intel HD 4000 IGP. Under Ubuntu, it
keeps the nVidia GPU going constantly, which reduces battery life to crap. I
even have a 94 Wh 9-cell battery on this thing, and it would chew though that
in about 2-3 hours, even idling.

 For comparison, Windows 7 got about 7.5 hours of battery life, and even
running a Linux VM, would get about 7 hours.

 However, after Christian Imhorst[2] pointed me to an article about my very
problem [3], and it listed Fedora. In particular, this line caught my
attention:

> The lack of switching, which I haven't investigated because there are no
> problems, doesn't even affect battery life negatively.

 My first thought was, "Huh... That sounds like a winner". And I've used
Fedora in the past. I love the more stock-ish GNOME implementation that they
provide out of the box. So, I decided to give it a shot.

 7-8 hours of battery life at idle. And even when doing things, it would
still give me much better battery life than Ubuntu. And given I've got the
94 Wh /slice/ battery coming in to add onto this thing, I'm probably gonna be
doubling those numbers when I'm using it away from my desk[4]. And that's
important to me.

 I'm glad to be using Linux as my daily driver again, if for nothing else but
being able to use the terminal for my needs.

-----

[1]: Mind you, I *really* dislike Discord. I've always found them to be shady,
    but m spouses use it for intra-room communication, so I'm stuck with it.
[2]: https://fosstodon.org/@datenteiler
[3]: https://www.ordinatechnic.com/general-guides/1/Hardware/2/Graphics/3/Nvidia/best-distributions-for-problematic-nvidia-optimus-hybrid-graphics
[4]: I have a Dell Pro3X port replicator/dock at my desk, so it's always on
    AC power there, anyway.

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