Yes, Apple Silicon is powerful. No doubt. But I still use my Intel Mac every single day in 2025 — and I’m not planning to stop anytime soon.

Not because I’m nostalgic.

Because it still does something very few machines can: It runs macOS, Manjaro Linux, and Windows, cleanly, reliably, and side by side.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s a deliberate choice.

Here’s why this setup still matters;

If you’re doing real system-level work, you know the truth: You don’t get to pick your OS and stick with it.

You work across:

  • Linux containers and bare metal

  • Windows enterprise environments

  • Apple-based dev/test/CI setups

Running all three OSes on the same physical machine means I have a full-featured lab at my fingertips. I can:

  • Boot into Manjaro for real kernel or Docker testing.

  • Use Windows for VPNs, Office docs, or policy testing.

  • Stay in macOS for scripting, note-taking, or day-to-day tasks.

It’s a systems engineer’s Swiss Army knife.

I Can Hear You Are Asking Why I Picked Manjaro⌗

I could’ve gone full Arch. But I also like getting work done.

Manjaro gives me:

Rolling releases without chaos

Access to the AUR for edge-case tools and custom builds

A clean, minimalist system that I control — but don’t have to babysit

For tasks like firewall rule testing, container runtime experiments, or just running a bleeding-edge stack on a stable base -> Manjaro hits the sweet spot.

Windows, It is Still There…⌗

Do I like using Windows? Not really. Do I need to? All the time.

Some clients still use:

  • Microsoft VPN tools

  • PowerShell scripts

  • Active Directory policies

  • Desktop applications that don’t run anywhere else

So instead of fighting it, I just boot into it. Do the thing. Get out.

Keeping Windows as an isolated boot or VM has been practical, not painful.

OSX Still Holds a Place⌗

There’s a reason macOS became so popular with developers and engineers:

  • It’s Unix under the hood — with a polished GUI on top.

  • You get SSH, zsh, scripting, and especially Homebrew.

  • Tools like Notes, Mail, and even Xcode are legitimately useful.

I use macOS for the things that don’t belong in a terminal. It’s where I write, manage projects, and sometimes code in peace.

This Isn’t About Nostalgia — It’s About Systems Thinking⌗

Running macOS, Manjaro, and Windows on the same machine isn’t just about flexibility — it’s how I train.

Not just what I use, but how I use it shapes the way I learn:

When you run Linux on an old machine — say one with a slow spinning HDD — you start noticing things Windows hides from you:

  • Why is the battery lasting 2 hours longer on Linux than it did on Windows?

  • Why is your disk read speed suddenly inconsistent? -> You realise the drive is wearing out.

  • Is the lag coming from a hardware fault, or is the power supply inadequate? -> You dig deeper, and you find out.

Linux doesn’t abstract things away. It makes them transparent — and that pushes you to really understand your system.

Even something as mundane as connecting to Wi-Fi becomes a lesson:

  • Windows: “Connected.” Done.

  • Linux: You run nmcli, inspect interfaces with ifconfig, compare bridges and NAT configurations… And somewhere in that process, you become the person who knows what’s happening! Not the one who reads about it later.

That’s the real value here: You stop learning by reading docs, you start learning by doing.