[Techtalk] cross-platform, cross-browser testing

[Conor Daly]

On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 01:17:10AM +1100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
Rasjid Wilcox thought:
> On Fri, 21 Feb 2003 7:11 am, Emma Jane Hogbin wrote:
> > If I don't want to have to dual boot I see myself having three
> > options:
> > 	- windows emulation (wine, crossover, plex86)
> > 	- virtual machine (not sure what this is really called, but think VMWare)
> > 	- buy a second, cheapo windows machine for the same $$ I'd spend on
> > 	  VMWare
> 
> I bought VMWare for Linux around 9 months ago.  It is the only piece of Linux 
> software I've ever bought, and I have absolutely no regrets about the 
> purchase.  One of its best features (in terms of testing websites) is that 
> you can 'Suspend' and 'Resume' an OS session at the click of a button.  So to 
> test several versions of IE while working on a page, it is just 'Resume', hit 
> Refresh in IE 5.0, 'Suspend', 'Resume', hit Refresh in IE 6.0, 'Suspend' etc.  
> You could test a page across all versions of IE in around a minute.  
> Alternately, if you have enough memory, you can have all versions running at 
> the same time, and simply ALT-TAB between them.

There's an option somewhere in VMWare that allows you to set up the main
filesystem as static with a "changes" volume overlaid ot top of it.  That
way, you could install a basic Windows98 with IE4 first, make that the
"static" fs and then upgrade IE4 to IE5 in the "overlay".  Do similar with
IE6.  Now you have the space occupied by a Windows98 install plus the diff
to IE5 plus the diff to IE6 rather than Win98 x 3.

Conor (who has a _very_ convoluted mind...)
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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