Linux frustrations... again...
Jun. 14th, 2022 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starseerdrgnSo, I tried running Linux on my laptop again. Keyword: tried.
For a refresher, it's a Dell Latitude E6430,l 12GB PC3-10700, Core-i5 3360M, nVidia NVS 5200M + Intel HD 4000 (Optimus chipset). I replaced the optical drive with a second HDD caddy for the module bay, and use a 9-cell 97Wh main battery, with a second 97Wh slice battery on the docking port (when not using the port extender). As a baseline on Windows 7, this thing can get an average of 14-16 hours of battery life with normal usage, or around 10 hours while watching videos. It uses two 500GB SSDs for data, so no bottlenecks there.
I installed Fedora Workstation 36 first, and one update later, GRUB broke. Yay... Reinstalled, and got updates. Except that it wouldn't stop using the nVidia card. I was getting battery life in the 3-4 hour range while idling, so I wasn't happy. Tried Fedora 36 KDE, and it worked...until I updated. nVidia-only issue happened again, and I lost access to the docking port (and second battery), so 1.5-2 hours of battery on idle. Didn't know I was running a Mac Portable...
Tried Kubuntu (among others), but everything had problems all around that I couldn't find any help with, and frustration kept building when I really need to be relaxing. I finally just gave up and went back to using my Windows 7 drive.
On-metal Linux just isn't happening on this machine. I'll stick to a VM.
For a refresher, it's a Dell Latitude E6430,l 12GB PC3-10700, Core-i5 3360M, nVidia NVS 5200M + Intel HD 4000 (Optimus chipset). I replaced the optical drive with a second HDD caddy for the module bay, and use a 9-cell 97Wh main battery, with a second 97Wh slice battery on the docking port (when not using the port extender). As a baseline on Windows 7, this thing can get an average of 14-16 hours of battery life with normal usage, or around 10 hours while watching videos. It uses two 500GB SSDs for data, so no bottlenecks there.
I installed Fedora Workstation 36 first, and one update later, GRUB broke. Yay... Reinstalled, and got updates. Except that it wouldn't stop using the nVidia card. I was getting battery life in the 3-4 hour range while idling, so I wasn't happy. Tried Fedora 36 KDE, and it worked...until I updated. nVidia-only issue happened again, and I lost access to the docking port (and second battery), so 1.5-2 hours of battery on idle. Didn't know I was running a Mac Portable...
Tried Kubuntu (among others), but everything had problems all around that I couldn't find any help with, and frustration kept building when I really need to be relaxing. I finally just gave up and went back to using my Windows 7 drive.
On-metal Linux just isn't happening on this machine. I'll stick to a VM.
