Share your daily driver computer setup

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  1. 14" MacBook Pro: This is my daily driver which I use because I consider Apple Silicon to be more secure and generally better than Intel/AMD, it has the best battery life I’ve ever had in a laptop, and because macOS has support for apps which aren’t available on Linux. The microphone also hardware disconnects when the lid is closed.
    ThinkPad X1 Carbon: This is my backup laptop, I like it because it’s very light and has a 4K display which perfectly scales down to 1080p, because Qubes is normally terrible with HiDPI displays so I have to run it at a lower resolution. It also has a built-in webcam cover which is neat.

  2. macOS Ventura (MacBook Pro): App support is the main reason, I also appreciate macOS’s security features like SSV, verified boot, and just generally a security-first approach to development.
    Windows 11: I run this in a Parallels VM on my MacBook Pro in case I need to run something on Windows. Running Windows in a VM on Apple Silicon is unironically better than running Windows natively on x86 so it works great.
    Qubes (ThinkPad): I dislike Linux desktop distros generally because apps sharing libraries and other system files tends to cause various instability issues over time, which is why I pretty much only use Qubes which obviously allows for app isolation. I also like Qubes networking in general, I find guaranteeing Linux is using a VPN 100% of the time to be difficult, and it’s much more convenient to just make a ProxyVM to make sure all traffic is directed there. Nevertheless, I’m still thinking about switching to Fedora Silverblue, because Qubes has some annoyances.
    Fedora: I run Fedora 37 for all my qubes.

  3. Browser: I’m using Arc.net as my main web browser, because I dislike Brave and it is the only other Chromium browser which has a good privacy policy I know of. I occasionally also use Firefox on my MacBook Pro, and I always use Firefox on Qubes.
    Other Stuff: I mostly use a browser for everything, but I also use VSCode, GitHub Desktop, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Signal, and the built-in Terminal app. I also really like Privileges on macOS for security. I use Tailscale extensively, not with Headscale because that has no iOS support unfortunately.

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