You can set up a development virtual machine for ZF1 unit testing and library development following these simple instructions.

1. Install requirements for VM. (Note: these are not required by ZF1 itself)

VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/)
Ruby (http://www.ruby-lang.org/)
Vagrant (http://vagrantup.com/)

2. Checkout repository to any location

git clone git://github.com/zendframework/zf1.git zf1-dev
cd zf1-dev

3. Start the process by running Vagrant.

vagrant up

This will take a long while as it has to download a VM image and then provision it. Once it has finished, it will exit and leave you back at the command prompt.

4. SSH into the VM

vagrant ssh

5. Build a version of PHP.

php-build.sh 5.3.11

This also takes a while as it compiles PHP for you!

6. Select PHP to use:

pe 5.3.11

7. Run tests

cd /vagrant/tests
phpunit --stderr -d memory_limit=-1 Zend/Acl/AclTest.php
phpunit --stderr -d memory_limit=-1 Zend/Amf/AllTests.php
(etc...)

Note that you can repeat items 5 and 6 to create any version if PHP.

Notes:

The VM will be running in the background as VBoxHeadless
HTTP and SSH ports on the VM are forwarded to localhost (22 -> 2222, 80 -> 8081)
The zf1-dev directory you checked out will be mounted inside the VM at /vagrant
You can develop by editing the files you cloned in the IDE of you choice.

To stop the VM do one of the following:

vagrant suspend   # if you plan on running it later
vagrant halt      # if you wish to turn off the VM, but keep it around
vagrant destroy   # if you wish to delete the VM completely

Also, when any of of the Puppet manifests change (.pp files), it is a good idea to rerun them:

vagrant provision