It wont destroy your battery life. I have a t480s with the nvidia card. You need to turn the card off when booting linux and just use the cpu for display. Research a bit about bumblebee and bbswitch.
Wait, how is "it won't destroy your battery life" somehow supported by "you need to turn off the card when booting linux". It sounds like you're saying it will destroy the battery life if it's not turned off. Did I misread that?
Sorry, I should have been more clear. Do you have a reason to use the graphics card on battery in Linux? Most people don't, so turning it off makes sense. You didn't misread it.
