How about using PhantomJS instead of Chrome?

[adityamenon]

I develop on Windows and test on a Vagrant virtual machine. I tried installing Chrome with xvfb but ran into various issues (at least one seemingly intractable).

I suggest it would be very flexible for everyone (people with just a console available, as well as those that have a full GUI) if Karma was configured to use PhantomJS by default instead, as it is super comfortable to use in the command line, and quite trivial to install.

[IgorMinar]

What's the problem with using Chrome in your setup? If it's available, Karma should be able to use it.

PhantomJS is not a browser. It is not compatible with Firefox or Chrome. Your users do not use phantomjs to run your app. So it makes no sense to run tests in PhantomJS.

Also debugging test failures in PhantomJS is a PITA.

[IgorMinar]

We should really just address the issue of using chrome or other modern browser in your environment. Karma can launch Chrome on windows, so I don't quite understand what's the problem.

[adityamenon]

Sorry to have created an issue of no real consequence. After a little fiddling to resolve the ENOENT error in Windows (also, I should have just RTFM), Karma works great from cmd. I'm not really particular that it should work in Vagrant alone, and maybe it is foolhardy to try now when Chrome doesn't know how to work without GTK & X11 initialized. Hopefully in the future this will be frictionless...

The issue with using Chrome is, I realized, myself. There is a guide to run Chrome with xvfb, but I could not replicate the results. I just got varying errors with issue I tried to fix (yesterday it was missing fonts today it is something else) and keep getting output like:

[0521/213125:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[0521/213125:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
Xlib:  extension "RANDR" missing on display ":99".
[2207:2234:0521/213125:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[2207:2230:0521/213125:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(624)] Failed to get name owner. Got org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get owner of name 'org.chromium.Mtpd'
: no such name
[2207:2230:0521/213125:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(624)] Failed to get name owner. Got org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get owner of name 'org.chromium.Mtpd'
: no such name
[2207:2207:0521/213126:ERROR:object_proxy.cc(529)] Failed to call method: org.chromium.Mtpd.EnumerateStorages: object_path= /org/chromium/Mtpd: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.
ServiceUnknown: The name org.chromium.Mtpd was not provided by any .service files
[0521/213126:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[0521/213126:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[0521/213126:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[0521/213126:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[0521/213126:ERROR:nss_util.cc(90)] Failed to create /home/vagrant/.pki/nssdb directory.
[2207:2207:0521/213126:ERROR:extension_prefs.cc(1520)] Bad or missing pref 'version' for extension 'aohghmighlieiainnegkcijnfilokake'
[2207:2207:0521/213126:ERROR:extension_prefs.cc(1520)] Bad or missing pref 'version' for extension 'apdfllckaahabafndbhieahigkjlhalf'
[2207:2207:0521/213126:ERROR:extension_prefs.cc(1520)] Bad or missing pref 'version' for extension 'coobgpohoikkiipiblmjeljniedjpjpf'
[2207:2207:0521/213126:ERROR:extension_prefs.cc(1520)] Bad or missing pref 'version' for extension 'blpcfgokakmgnkcojhhkbfbldkacnbeo'
[2207:2207:0521/213126:ERROR:extension_prefs.cc(1520)] Bad or missing pref 'version' for extension 'pjkljhegncpnkpknbcohdijeoejaedia'

I don't know if this is just permissions but trying to run as root failed because Chrome would 'refuse' to do so...