Stringing together this many platforms is nuts, but if you make web pages on Macs it will save you a lot of running around just to see how crappy your work renders on IE.

Here at technically.us we have a Powerbook, an iMac that tends to overheat, and a headless Ubuntu box. I use FreeNX when I want to do anything requiring a display in Linux.

Wine is easy to install into Ubuntu if you follow the directions , but text in bitmap fonts fails to render on the NoMachine Mac NX client (windows, dialogs… all blank).

I found that Bitmap fonts will display if you run Wine through standard “ssh -X” tunneling. It seems the “X11 SECURITY extension controls” force it into client side font rendering. But if you open a trusted tunnel with “ssh -Y”, you’ll see the same problem as with the NX client. I don’t know if this is the fault of Apple’s X11 implementation or what, but I don’t have the same problem with an NX client on Windows.

You can’t use IE through standard tunneling; if you could your work would be done. Unfortunately it throws a bunch of errors and won’t start. The solution is to log in with a trusted “ssh -Y” or NX client tunnel and specifically configure Wine to render fonts on the server. Append the following to your .wine/user.reg:

[Software\\Wine\\X11 Driver]
"ClientSideWithRender"="N"

Verify that you can start winecfg and see text. Then, go to IEs 4 Linux and let its script do 5 minutes of heavy browser lifting. You’ll need to add the same configuration lines to the relevant user.reg (like in .ies4linux/ie6/). You should then be able to start IE from the scripts installed to your home/bin dir or on your Ubuntu desktop if you can see it.

Ain’t it pretty? (Prettier than maintaining a Windows install just to test on one stupid browser, anyway.)