I was able to use mpv to watch some anime I had downloaded on tty. Does this mean this was only possible because I already had xorg installed and running (I was using qtile prior to that)? I’m not sure if that’s how that works though.

Messaging, reading, school work, watching anime, music, web browsing (may not be able to do this one nicely though). My use cases are very simple to implement on tty-only I think.

I’ll look into that, thanks.

Well yeah, but I want to know any tips on doing it effectively. If I just “don’t install a DE” I wouldn’t know where to go from there.

Thanks a lot, I’ll definitely try the terminal multiplexers you’re talking about. I wondered how you would get different windows in tty.

I actually am using a manual Arch install. What i meant by gaining confidence is completely abandoning xorg and using the tty only.