This will be the quick and dirty way to dev and test on a linux box from the safety and comfort of your windows desktop.

The Problem:

Developing in a Windows environment does not allow programmers to truely test how their application will run on a Linux based server.

The Solution:

Setup a remote Linux box that your Windows desktop can connect to and run from with a completely remote setup.

The Details:

There are several items that we will need in-order to make this setup.

• Windows Box
• Linux Box
• Your Brain
• A little know how (can be found in this guide)

There are several steps to setup

1. Setup software on Windows box
   • Setup your text editor of choice (Edit Plus, e-texteditor, notepad, UE Studio, etc.). I chose e-texteditor as it includes bundles for many languages and helps in the programming and coding proccesses. E Text Editor can be found at http://www.e-texteditor.com for $35. Its not to expensive and for all of the bundles included in the software, it makes coding a breeze.
   • Setup Drive Software of choice (WebDrive, SftpDrive, etc.). I chose WebDrive as it works well to setup multiple mounts from multiple sources. Webdrive can be found at http://www.webdrive.com. WebDrive does cost about $60 but in my line of work it is well worth it.
   • Setup SVN Software (TortoiseSVN, Syncro Subversion, etc.). I installed TortoiseSVN as I found it integrates the best into the windows environment This is an open-source tool that can be found at http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org. It is simple to install just follow along with installer.
   • Setup SSH client (telnet, SecureCRT, etc). I chose SecureCRT as it supports multiple connections and can save sessions. Secure CRT can be found at http://www.vandyke.com/products/securecrt for $99.
2. Setup Linux Box
   • SSH needs to be configured. If its not installed it can be with this command: sudo apt-get install ssh.
   • SVN need to be installed using this command: sudo apt-get install svn.
   • Install and configure Webmin.
     • wget garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/webadmin/webmin_1.390_all.deb
     • sudo apt-get install libnet-ssleay-perl libauthen-pam-perl libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
     • If you do not have a root password setup set one up now using: sudo passwd root.
     • sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.380_all.deb
     • Connect to the server at https://yourserver:10000. From there you can configure all the settings your server as you see fit. This includes all your database server, and file server needs.
3. Mount Linux Server as a drive to windows machine. Configure WebDrive to connect to a site using the ip address of your Linux box and type SFTP(ssh). Then enter a username and password that was configured for SSH in Webmin and assign a letter for the drive.
4. Once the drive has been setup as a local drive, open the local drive and setup a folder for your current project.
5. Right click on the folder you just created and do an “SVN Checkout.” Checkout from your team’s repository.
6. Open up E-Texteditor and do a File >> Open Dir as Project. Select the directory that you checked out to.
7. Setup SSH session in SecureCRT.

This provides several benefits:

• Can edit files and update your SVN directly to your Linux Box
• Can run the web server from the SecureCRT
• Can setup all database needs through Webmin Panel instead of command line.
• Allows to develop on Linux with Windows interface, providing a smooth interface for non Linux friendly coders.