/** * @article Sharing localhost environment * between Ubuntu and Windows * partitions * * @since December 10, 2011 * @package Linux * * @tags lamp-server, * ubuntu, * WAMP * */
I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux on my laptop exclusively for about four months now, after having grown accustomed to Windows machines over many years. I jumped in headfirst, figuring that was the only way to actually learn the ins and outs of Linux. So far, its been great, and there are very few things I miss now. I left about a quarter of my laptop’s hard drive partitioned for the Windows 7 install that it came with, and up until this past week I’d booted up Windows at most 4 times… for a conference call on GoToMeeting, to slice a Photoshop file I couldn’t handle in Gimp, and a couple other odds and ends.
But… there are a few times in a web developer’s career that having a Windows machine is a necessity. When you have a client that demands their design work in IE6, for example… I tried everything I could think of in Linux, running Internet Explorer under WINE (kinda worked for me with IE7, but I couldn’t run IE6 at all), trying IETester in PlayOnLinux (pretty much a complete blowout in my experience)… so I finally started looking at using the Windows partition of my hard drive for something other than empty space.
I tried a number of ways to share my work-in-progress between my Linux and Windows partitions, but this is the one which ended up working for me. I found bits and pieces of it various places online, but I didn’t see it put together anywhere, so I’m posting this in case anyone else finds it useful.