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Comment by JupiterMoon | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. If you are doing Linux dev - why not just run Linux?

I'm forced to use Windows 7 at work. I run Linux in virtualbox to get round this limitation. It keeps corporate IT departments happy because they can enforce patching policies and audit software.

You're forced to use windows, but your work requires that you do work on Linux? Seems counterproductive, can you provide more details?

Same here. Our network is heavy on MS Active Directory authorization, so really the only way to run Linux at all is to host it on a Windows/Virtualbox VM.

That sounds terrible.

I consider it a fun challenge to work around the obstacles that are in place. I also use a private tunnel to get around all the web filters and etc.

> I also use a private tunnel to get around all the web filters and etc.

Why would you do that?

Last time I ran into problems with web filters at work, it was because they had blocked a lot of security-related things on the grounds that they could potentially be useful to hackers. For example, the websites for most popular fuzzers were blocked.

A specific case I recall was being able to access Sourceforge.

Not everyone does 100% Linux dev all the time. Some other things you might want to do that just don't work as well on Linux:

- Windows development

- Productivity software

- Email and scheduling, if your company uses Exchange

- Support from corporate IT

- Company intranet apps, if you happen to work at a company whose intranet apps are only tested on IE. (It still happens.)

- Video games

When I'm purely in a dev mode, I do. But often, I'd like to be able to jump into online games with my friends on the same PC, and the games I like to play simply work better on Windows. It's nice to have the same or equivalent tools available on Windows for when I'm already there, so I don't need to switch back to my other boot or fiddle around with a virtual machine.

Do you find yourself switching to games often in the middle of work? Or are you talking about a hobbyist dev machine?

Very much a hobbyist dev machine, and I primarily write video games and related tools on this machine. Some of my emulator projects are cross-platform, so I need to be able to test on Windows for those anyway; it's kind of a general purpose workhorse.

The computer I use for my day job is exclusively Linux, as I have no need for Windows software or online games there. (I'm guilty of playing Minecraft during my lunch break, but that fortunately runs quite pleasantly under Linux.)

Not all companies allow for BYOD (or BYOOS) - especially those with security requirements foisted upon them by third parties.

Those companies don't usually run Windows 10 unfortunately ...

Office more specifically Excel and I know linux has alternatives but they are not as good and everyone else i am working with is using/sending excel.

I excitedly installed the new crossover linux because of there office 2017 support in my manjaro machine at home and yea i guess it "works" but the experience was slow, painful, and i wouldn't call it stable.

Beyond that i find i am constantly having to put work into my linux machine to get things to run YES its a million times better than it used to be AND I WANT to run linux but its always more work.

Windows has better support for touch screens, pens, and dictation, all of which I rely on. I use WSL to be productive, and have a separate Linux PC (with touch screen) too.

Because you want to run real software, too! There's nothing like the Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, plus great backup utilities, media playing and management, etc. If you're targeting Linux, run it in a VM so if you screw something up, your host OS stays intact.

Screw something up?

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