Athos. Porthos. Aramis. And of course, D’Artagnan.

If you’ve read the novel or caught one of the many film adaptations, you probably remember their famous motto:
“All for one, and one for all.”

Even Bryan Adams turned that into an anthem, “All for Love” , which became the theme song for The Three Musketeers (1993) .

Oddly enough, this old motto resurfaced in my head recently, not because I was rereading Dumas, but while working across three different machines: Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Each OS has its strengths. I’ve used Linux for years as a server workhorse, but it has slowly evolved into my daily driver, now running smoothly with Wayland on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. Compared to the X11 days, it feels like a different world.

Still, with all three systems on hand, I started thinking: What if I gave each one a clear role, like the musketeers themselves? Instead of one machine trying to do everything and getting sidetracked by Steam popups while I’m meant to be writing docs, I could split responsibilities.

Let’s face it. When everything’s on one machine, it’s easy to context-switch yourself into a black hole. One moment you’re fixing a bug, and the next thing you know, you’re “testing” a game you installed last month. Just for a minute, of course.

So I did some introspection, a bit of AI-powered brainstorming (okay, maybe I just talked to a chatbot), and came up with a setup where each OS has a clear domain.

The Responsibility Breakdown

  • macOS
    Prototyping, light coding, heavy research, UI/UX-focused work, and anything that leans toward design or flow exploration.

  • Ubuntu (Linux)
    Developing, heavy coding, building things, testing deployments, DevSecOps tasks, and anything that needs real horsepower and terminal depth.

  • Windows
    Clerical tasks, admin duties, Microsoft Office, bureaucracy, and of course, games.

This arrangement is highly personal. You might have different workflows, tools, or preferences. But the idea is universal: reduce friction, define boundaries, and let each system shine in its role.

Sure, juggling three OSes sounds like a maintenance nightmare to some. But for me, it’s second nature. Like swimming, flying, and running in three different worlds. I’m no Black Marlin, Falcon, or Cheetah, but I’m comfortable navigating all three.