What’s Your Daily Driver?

I get that question a lot, and it’s funny the looks I get when I say, “Windows.”

“But, Ben, I thought you were an uber nerd and I thought you’d be running Linux,” is the follow-up statement.

For quite some time, I did try running Linux, but it really came down to functionality. For work, I could almost pull it off, but I use a Dell docking station that doesn’t play well with Linux drivers. Most employers don’t really appreciate it when you spend most of the day trying different distributions and tinkering with the drivers to make it run as well as Windows. When it comes to functionality, Windows usually just works, and most employers like it when their employees’ computers just work.

I work for an MSP, and most of the utilities we must run are pretty exclusive to Microsoft Windows. While I could get by running a Windows virtual machine, I would ask myself, what’s the point of running Linux if I must always have a Windows VM running in the background? I appreciate that there are several employers out there that encourage the use of Linux, but I would imagine that most of those jobs revolve around programming or using web apps. Oh, and of course, there’s pentesting, but whenever I’ve had to do that, having Kali on a VM makes my life much easier since I can roll back any changes I’ve made using snapshots.

“Okay, Ben… How about at home? You’ve got to run Linux at home.”

Sorry, I have some more bad news. I run Windows on my desktop and laptop at home too. I know it’ll come as a shock to you, but the reasons are a bit different. When it comes down to it, it’s mostly for gaming reasons. If I ever want to play games, it’s much easier to run them on Windows than hope there is a Linux version or even worse, run it via Wine (I can’t explain why I don’t like running things with Wine). Most of the time when I went to run Linux, VMWare always shows up in the nick of time.

My hope is that one day Linux will be just as compatible and able to run the things I need with as little ease as Windows, but I don’t think that day is quite here yet. I don’t think it’s far off, though! I have been very tempted by various Linux distros recently. Fedora, while a Redhat-backed OS, looks very promising, and I have been known to run Mint Linux on a laptop or two in the past.

In conclusion, please don’t hate on your fellow nerdy brethren for still running Windows. Some of us fear change and are very comfortable with what we know. What we know works, and we like what works. Sometimes I just want to use my computer without too much complication.