How do you develop on a minority OS?
As I mentioned before, I made the switch to GNU/Linux at home some time ago. I talked about the benefits it brought me in terms of PC performance and productivity.
But at work, I’m still firmly rooted in the Windows camp. Why? Primarily because my job involves developing web sites and apps.
Tracking browser usage is a notoriously haphazard affair. According to the much-quoted W3C schools statistics, roughly 53% of users are using Internet Explorer. According to wikipedia, that number is nearly 75%.
Given internet explorer’s ‘unusual’ implementation of web standards - not to mention its market share - it is a necessity to test on these browsers. This is where things get a bit tricky for users of minority operating systems such as Linux, or OSX.
Sure, there are services such as Browsershots which take snapshots of sites using particular browsers, but if you’re anything like me, developing for IE is an iterative process. Make a change, hit refresh. Make a change, hit refresh. Waiting 3-30 minutes to see an update isn’t an option!
I’d be interested to hear comments from anyone who has found a way round this issue.
Tags: Internet Explorer, Linux, web development, Windows
June 24th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I think you’re looking for this:
http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Beta
Another option is to install windows in a VM (like Virtualbox or VMware) - and then use some similar solution for windows.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
And here’s something that should help you install it on your distro:
http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-install-internet-explorer-on-ubuntu8.04
June 24th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Peterix - thanks for those links! I had wanted to avoid the VM solution if possible, but I’ve never come across ies4linux before. I’ll try them out - thanks!