Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Internet Explorer 7 on Linux

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fun-and-exciting dept.

An anonymous reader writes to mention WebExpose is running a quick guide to get Internet Explorer 7.0 running on Linux. From the article: "Microsoft conditional comments do work, unlike the standalone version of IE on Windows, so you will be able to develop and test webpages across almost all major browsers (IE 5-7, Firefox, Opera) on one Linux box! Also note that we will avoid Microsoft's Genuine Advantage download validation checks, so pure-Linux users will be able to finish the process without having to find a genuine Windows machine to download the IE7 setup file (the check is avoided legitimately, by the way)."

3 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Alpa PNG in other IEs? by Kelson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One of the problems I've had running IE6 through WINE (not through ies4linux, just a stock Crossover install) is that the filter-based workarounds to trick IE5.5 and IE6 into displaying alpha-transparent PNG images correctly just doesn't work. IIRC, it's because those methods force IE to display the image through an ActiveX control which isn't present on Linux systems. It replaces the image with a blank one, but doesn't display the alpha-blended background.

    This shouldn't be an issue with IE7, but it does make it difficult to test layouts that use alpha PNG and rely on the IE6 workaround.

    It's good to know that they've got conditional comments working, though. That's always been the trick with running multiple IEs on Windows. You have to tweak the registry, or else each IE engine will parse them as if it were the most recent one installed on the system.

  2. You can even get an obvious answer! by Kelson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the article summary:

    you will be able to develop and test webpages across almost all major browsers (IE 5-7, Firefox, Opera) on one Linux box!

    If you do your main development on a Linux box, and want to test minor changes in IE as you make them (major changes and final testing should still be done on a native system if possible), it's a lot more convenient to fire up a copy of IE in WINE than to move over to another box or reboot into Windows.

    1. Re:You can even get an obvious answer! by djh101010 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you do your main development on a Linux box, and want to test minor changes in IE as you make them (major changes and final testing should still be done on a native system if possible), it's a lot more convenient to fire up a copy of IE in WINE than to move over to another box or reboot into Windows. OK, right, I see that, but - how much confidence are you _really_ going to have in an artificially constructed pretty-good-emulation running a Windows binary under Linux? I mean, fine for "does it look OK", but to really validate, I think anything other than the real thing running on the real thing, is iffy at best. In the QA environments I've set up, we had a stable of systems in our QA lab, initially each with a different version of 'doze and IE on them. Later, we went to a vmware setup with virtual machines running the OS and browser to be tested, all repeatable golden clean builds and so on. If it were up to me to design something, I'd rather go with a vmware solution and different OS images to boot into.

      But, I suppose, if it's just to keep on eye on the site as you go along, fine. So is IE7 really _that_ broken that this is needed? Again not trying to flame, it just boggles the fark out of me that they're still doing that.