I'd like to see how my website runs on different browers. However, I only have access to a Windows XP machine and I do not want to instally multiple OSs and dual boot the system all the time because it'll probably take up a fair bit of storage space on my hard drive.

I'd like to test the site in Konqueror and Galeon without having to pay. I've heard of some free software called Knoppix. I'm not sure if it would work very well, and since I've never ran an operating system apart from Windows. Has anyone used Knoppix? Is it any good? RAM shouldn't be a problem either since I think 1GB would be sufficent.


(quoted from Wikipedia)

I have a few questions in ragard to this.

a) what is a bootable CD / DVD-ROM and how do I get one? Is that just the Knoppix software installed on a CD... I do have access to a CD and DVD burner.

could someone please explain to me what a BIOS Setup is? and how to I work out the BIOS setup also?

Sorry for all the questiosn, I was never good at OSes

Knoppix is a Live CD there's quite a difference between bootable and Live CD, a Live CD is bootable but runs an entire Operating System from it, e.g. booting DOS from a floppy is a similar concept except Knoppix runs a lot more programs and is graphical (terminal if you want too).

What Knoppix does is the whole Operating System runs straight off the CD. All the programs you use etc, all from the CD, the Hard Drive is not touched unless you allow it to use a part of your hard drive as a swap partition, or your perform some sort of File I/O on the drives yourself.

There are many Live CD distributions around, you can get Ubuntu which can be shipped for free to you if you go to their website (comes with a Live CD and a HDD Install CD), the problem though you may have to wait a few weeks before you see the CDs, but if you have slow internet, this might be an option.

Otherwise you could download Knoppix, Ubuntu or the other Live CDs that are around. It might pay to look at all the Live CDs though, there might be one that's just built for Web Site testing, in which might shave a few 100 MBs off the CD so it'd be smaller.

If you're wondering how they can store 2GB of programs on a 700MB CD, then it's the use of their compression technique. Basically everything on the CD is compressed and uncompressed into your RAM (like using a RAM Disk) and if needs be, using your allocated swap partition if you chose to have one.

Before grabbing it though, check out if it has the packages that you require for testing, e.g. Galeon and Konqueror, since it uses KDE, Konqueror would definitely be on it, I'm not sure about Galeon though. There's really only minor differences from Galeon/Konqueror compared to Firefox, as long as you leave newer technology behind (web technology takes about 3 or more years to be implemented into browsers, sooner if commercial demand is great).

At first Knoppix might be hard to navigate, but if you're only going to use it for that purpose, then you'll find the browsers you want in the Internet folder, which you'll find by clicking the KDE cogs/gears (like Windows Start button).


Cheers,


MC

I have used Knoppix for this exact purpose before. It is fairly easy to do. It also gives you a clean bootable disk with a lot of tools in case your computer is infected. You will have some trouble getting Knoppix to get the most out of your video card, but this is actually a good thing: you want to make sure your users with the least powerful machines can read your site.

You get to the BIOS/CMOS/Boot Setup by pressing Del as soon as your PC starts doing stuff like detecting harddrives and such. Whatever you do, just mess around what you need, if you screw your config you'll have to reset your BIOS defaults (which includes finding the jumpers in the motherboard to do so) or in a worst case, if your BIOS let's you do overclocking through it, you might burn some stuff.

Anyway, if you just mess around the Boot Device order, you shouldn't have a single problem.

Since I guess information never hurt anyone, Knoppix is a Linux distribution (also reffered to as "distro") and as most other distro's they're free.

I'd really recommend the Ubuntu Live CD, though, it has a bit more hardware compatibility than Knoppix last time I checked (could be wrong though).

For your testing purposes any Live CD should do, though!

Have fun experimenting!

Thanks for all you replies!

But if everything is booted from a CD, is there any possibility of me installing new programs that only work on linux?

You could also try the free vmplayer (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/) and download a linux OS (http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/cat/45). Works great, maybe a little bit on the slow site, but it works

The short answer is yes.
Knoppix may run from a CD, which is a read-only media, but your home directory will live in a RAM disk, which is just like any other disk as far as allowing you to store files, the only difference being that storage will happen in a specially designated section of memory instead of spinning magnetic media.

For example, you can install Adobe Flash Player in Firefox, then configure your Konqueror to recognize and use the same plug-in, which will be stored in your home directory on RAM disk.

Another option that you might want to consider is Microsoft Virtual PC (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx). It is similar to VMWare but is of course made by Microsoft and is free. I started out with Virtual PC but soon fell in love with VMWare. The price tag for VMWare is hard to swallow if the only thing you want to do is view your webpage.

The above option is for VMPlayer which is different from VMWare Workstation. VMPlayer is like a read only version that only lets you run the OS and not create your own. Creating your own can be handy when some one has not been nice enough to supply you with an image. In any case Virtual PC is equivalent to VMWare Workstation as you can make your own OS image.

In your case I would recommend the virtualization route. It would be much quicker than powering off your computer and rebooting for every single OS you want to test. Additionally you can have multiple OSes running so you can do all your testing in a matter of minutes and not hours. The major downside to this option is RAM and computer horsepower. Both Virtual PC and VMWare will eat your resources alive so you should have ample RAM and other resources.

good question!
y can't do that here.
y tryed to work linux on windows but is too hard!

If you want to see what your website look like in different browsers and on different operating systems then go to Browser Shots. Just put in the sites address and then it will take screenshots in the browsers you choose.

much easier than booting into a live cd.

btw sirat, i gather your not here for hosting?