Aug 10
Cross Browser Testing on Linux
This post was updated on Sat 21st August 2010 to bring it up-to-date.
Browser Roundup
Below is a quick overview of the most popular browsers and their native support for Linux. Each one is discussed further down.
| Browser | Logo | Linux Client | Wine | Market Share* | Client Download |
| Internet Explorer |  |
52% | www.microsoft.com | ||
| Firefox |  |
N/A | 31% | www.mozilla.com/firefox/ | |
| Chrome/Chromium |  |
N/A | 10% | www.google.com/chrome | |
| Safari |  |
5% | www.apple.com/safari/ | ||
| Opera |  |
N/A | 2% | www.opera.com/download/ |
* Very rought market share estimate for August 2010
Internet Explorer on Linux
As a proprietary Microsoft product Internet Explorer is only available for Windows based Operating Systems. However it can be run under Wine fairly easily. If you only need IE6 take a look at Installing IE6 on Ubuntu via a Wine utility called Winetricks. There are a variety of online resources that will explain how to install various other versions of IE on Linux.
Note: Although you will not be asked for a license by law you will probably need one for a legal installation.
Alternatively if you don’t want to install Internet Explorer(s) on Linux, which is beyond understandable, there are some online resources that can take screenshots of renders on your behalf. Two popular ones are IENetRenderer and Browsershots.
Firefox for Linux
The vast majority of Linux distributions come pre-installed with Firefox as the default browser. If, for whatever reason, you don’t have Firefox you can grab it at www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Chrome / Chromium for Linux
Both Google Chrome and Chromium now have native clients for Linux. Chromium (the unbranded and open source version of Google Chrome) is available in the Ubuntu repositories and can be installed via Applications > Ubuntu Software Centre.
Alternatively you can download and compile dev snapshots from http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/ or download Google Chrome from www.google.com/chrome
Safari on Linux
Apple’s Safari browser isn’t available for Linux. However it should install and work perfectly under Wine without any additional tinkering or configuring.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to use Wine, you could use Epiphany or Chromium for layout testing as they both use the same rendering engine (WebKit) and should suffice in most situations. Both are available in the Ubuntu repositories and Software Centre.
Opera for Linux
Opera is available in a variety of packages and archives for various distributions.
You can get Opera from www.opera.com/browser/download/
More to come shortly on cross-platform topics like fonts…
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Related posts:
- Installing Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) on Linux (Ubuntu)
- Object Doesnt Support this Property or Method (IE)
MSN Contact: contact [at] danielgibbs.net
Dan Gibbs is a web developer, designer and SEO consultant involved in devon web design.
David Hopkins 11 August 2009 12:40 pm
Hi,
I am also a Linux user. I didn’t know that you could test Chrome or Safari in Linux. Will have to get those setup.
In the case of IEs for Linux, I find those to be very poor. They don’t have features like the alpha image loader. So I do IE debuging in VMWare.
Gibbs 12 August 2009 12:31 pm
I noticed that about IE too. It’s good in terms of other quirks such as positioning but a lot of the filters don’t work like the alpha filter you mentioned.
Using VMWare does kind of defeat the point as some people may not have Windows. In that case I would suggest using Browsershots, not a brilliant solution but one nonetheless. Thanks for the feedback.
somchart 12 December 2009 4:09 am
Now my company use UBUNTU, it make I tried start to learn about cross browser with ubuntu.
I installed IEs 4 Linux on my OS, but IE is very slowly, how can I config it for better.
Thank
Gibbs 15 December 2009 10:16 am
Hi Somchart. I don’t think you can do much to improve the performance. It also eats a lot of memory in the process. IEs 4 Linux uses Wine so it isn’t a native application.
As pointed out by David a lot of “features” such as filters don’t work either. However, with that being said, it should still be a good enough method purely for testing layout quirks.
Nick 2 October 2010 2:27 pm
I never thought I’d see someone who wanted to put IE on a linux box.
Firefox is a great browser and I imagine its market share will only increase. Google Chrome wasn’t as good as I thought it’d be.
Gibbs 3 October 2010 1:37 pm
@Nick
Of course it’s for testing purposes. Sometimes I have to support it for clients. Nobody in there right mind would install any IE on Linux to actually use it
.
Personally I like Chrome (well Chromium) but still prefer Firefox. I think Firefox still has a better development framework and Chrome needs quite a bit of improving to come anywhere near Firefox in that regard. It is a solid browser nonetheless though.
Gavin Dibley 12 July 2011 10:39 am
As much as I’d love to be able to solely use a Linux desktop for website design and development, I cant.
There is no substitute to testing cross browsers WITHOUT using a Windows machine (virtual or host) as e.g. a Windows Firefox looks and runs somewhat differently to a Linux Firefox, making the two totally unreliable in terms of main steam cross browser testing.
Gibbs 12 July 2011 11:35 am
If that’s the case then there’s absolutely no way to test cross browsers WITHOUT Linux as, like you said, they run somewhat differently. Firefox renders elements the same its just that things at the system level, such as font rendering, are different. Once the differences are understood its easy to predict how things will appear without even testing them.
The idea is to develop websites correctly as it will appear fine to the end-user. A Windows or Linux Firefox user won’t know any difference as it will more then likely look normal to them. The aim isn’t to make designs look exactly the same across different platforms, that isn’t possible practically, but to make sure your website looks and functions correctly across different browsers.
I’ve been using Linux in a professional environment at work for years without the need for Windows. Granted I have experience with IE hacks and take advantage of browser shots etc but for true testing you would need to use Windows for IE, Mac for Safari etc etc regardless.