How to Install Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera on Ubuntu

If you are a simple Ubuntu user who just want to surf the net and check email, then the default Firefox browser (or Konqueror for Kubuntu) should be sufficient to fulfill your needs. However, if you are a Web designer/developer, who at the same time also a Ubuntu lover, then you will find that you need more than just Firefox on your desktop.

Since Firefox, IE 6, 7, Safari, Opera all have different rendering engines, web designers/developers will have to test their projects on various browsers to see the rendering effects for each browser. While Windows users can simply download the windows version of the various browsers and install it in their platform, it is not so straightforward in Ubuntu, since there is no Linux version of Internet Explorer and Safari.

Luckily, there is Wine where you can use to install Windows software on Linux.

Install Wine

In your terminal,

sudo apt-get install wine

Next, download the Microsoft Core Fonts

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Copy the fonts to Wine directory

cp /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial*.ttf ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/fonts/

Configure Wine

In your terminal, type

winecfg

or Select Application -> Wine -> Configure Wine

At the bottom of the Application tab, there is a dropdown box. Select Window XP. Press Ok.

Installing Safari

Download the Safari For Windows from http://www.apple.com/safari/download/.

Right click on the SafariSetup.exe icon and choose “Open with Wine Windows Emulator“. This will load up the installer.

Click “Next” to proceed with the installation. When it arrives at the page that asks you if you want to install Bonjour and Software update, uncheck the selection.

Click “Install“.

Launching Safari

Most of the time, Wine will create a desktop icon for its installed application, in this case, Safari. Click on the icon to launch Safari. If it doesn’t create the icon, you still can launch it via Application->Wine->Programs->Safari

If you have the title bar as shown in the picture below, don’t worry, that is normal.

To access flash content with Safari, you will need to install the flash player as well.

Download the flash player from Adobe (Remember to download the Windows version, not the LInux version)

Right click on the downloaded file and select “Open with Wine Windows Emulator“.

Done. Now you should be able to access flash site (like youtube.com) with Safari.

(watching Youtube video on safari)

Installing IE 6

The software ies4linux has made it very easy to install Internet Explorer 5 and 6 on your Ubuntu desktop.

In your terminal,

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Just click “OK” and the program will install IE on your Ubuntu desktop.

Installing IE7

Currently, there are no good solution to install IE 7 on Ubuntu. The best alternative is to use ies4linux to install IE 7 render engine on IE6 interface.

Click on “Advanced” on the ies4linux window. At the bottom, there is a 7.0 box. Check it and press “OK”. Proceed with the standard installation of ies4linux.

Installing Opera

Installing Opera is the easiest since it has a Linux version. Either in your terminal, type

sudo apt-get install opera

or go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager, select Opera and click “Apply“.

Done.

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