In this article we will deal with installing Internet Explorer with the help of Wine and IEs4Linux. The installation is not difficult and in the end you should have ever possible browser available to you for all your testing needs. Even though this installation will require the use of WINE you will not have to go through any complicated WINE set up. In fact the most difficult aspect of this setup is downloading and running a script that will take care of the most difficult part of the installation for you.

Preparing for the installation

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have the right repositories in your /etc/apt/sources.list file. Open that file up and check to make sure the Universe repositories are uncommented. If you are using Januty (9.04) you will see the lines:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-updates universe

Makes sure none of those lines begin with the “#” character. If they do, remove that character and save the file. If you had to make changes to the file you will need to update apt with the command:

sudo apt-get update

Now you are ready to begin the installation.

Installing

The first thing you need to do is install a couple of applications with the help of apt-get. From within the same terminal you checked the sources.list file issue the following command:

sudo apt-get install wine cabextract

Once this has finished you need to download the IEs4Linux installation script from this site. When that file is downloaded go back to your terminal window and change to the directory that file was downloaded to and issue the following commands:

tar xvzf ies4linux-XXX.tar.gz

Where XXX is the release number.

cd ies4linux-XXX

Where XXX is the release number.

You are now inside the directory that contains everything necessy to install three different versions of Internet Explorer for Linux (5, 5.5, and 6 Sorry – no 7 or 8). Issue the following command:

./ies4linux

Figure 1

The above command will open the GUI installation tool (see Figure 1). From within this tool you can select which version(s) of Internet Explorer to install, the language, if you want Flash Player 9 installed, and where you want icons to be placed.

You can also click the advanced button for more options. Within the advanced section you can select to install IE7 which is very much in beta. I attempted this installation only to have python segfault. There is a hack for this but it’s not really worth the trouble. The problem is that IE7 is not yet supported by WINE. As soon as it is IEs4Linux will add this support.

Once you have made those choices click OK and the installation will proceed.

Figure 2

When the installation begins a new window will pop open (see Figure 2). The last line in this window instructs you how to run Internet Explorer. In my case the executable is located in /home/jlwallen/bin/ie6. There is a rather odd behavior I have found with this installation. Upon completion of IEs4Linux you may not be able to run Internet Explorer without the help of sudo. Do not do this. Before you run the ~/bin/ie6 command issue the following command:

sudo chown -R USER.USER ~/.ies4linux

Where USER is the user name you log in with (in my case jlwallen)

The problem is that some of the files/directories in the ~/.ies4linux directories are installed as the root user. Your standard user will not be able to issue those command or use those files. So changing the ownership of the files and directories within the ~/.ies4linux directory solves that issue.

Final thoughts

Having IE 6 on your machine will not solve a lot of problems. But having the ability to test features of your web sites with as many browsers as possible is always good. Hopefully IE 7 will be supported soon which will bring even more validity to the IEs4Linux project.

Crossover is a commercialized version of Wine, a re-implementation of the Win32 API, which allows to run Windows software naively on the operating system. Crossover Mac Pro is therefor capable of running Windows software in Mac OS X while Crossover Linux Pro can do the same under Linux.

The benefits of this solution are obvious. Crossover (or Wine for that matter) provide the means to run Windows software directly in another operating system. This is a difference to dual boot systems where the user has to switch between the systems and virtual machines which also need time to boot and do not provide the same levels of performance.

It should be mentioned that it is not possible to run all Windows applications with Crossover. Codeweavers have created a table with compatibility ratings for windows applications.

The benefits of Crossover over Wine are noteworthy as well. Crossover, being a commercialized version of Wine, comes with several functions not found in Wine. This includes graphical and one-click installer for Windows applications among other things.

Codeweavers officially supports several applications and games in both versions of Crossover.

Applications:

• Microsoft Office 2007, 2003, XP, 2000 and 97
• Microsoft Visio
• Microsoft Project
• Quicken
• and others

Games:

• World of Warcraft
• Team Fortress 2
• Civilization IV
• Half-Life 2
• and others

You can win one of ten licenses for Crossover Mac Pro or Crossover Linux Pro. Please mention your operating system in the comment so that I know which version you need.

ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system, which has been in the alpha stage of development for about 10 years, which allows Windows applications and libraries to be executed without having to use a single piece of Microsoft-owned code!

A similar project to ReactOS is WINE, which allows you to execute Windows binaries in Linux and OS X.

ReactOS has an easy-to-use graphical interface, which resembles Windows Classic. Some things, like the Windows logo, are avoided however. It adds some features Windows lacks, such as virtual desktops.

The practical uses of ReactOS are somewhat limited. The operating system can run many Win32 applications, but this is patchy, and support for .NET Framework applications, OpenGL and DirectX is still being developed. Their own website acknowledges that ReactOS is ‘not recommended for everyday use’.

Their website boasts a selection of screenshots of all sort of programs running under ReactOS, for example OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, VB5, Winamp, Diablo 2 and Unreal Tournament!

ReactOS with a classic Windows game!

The operating system is probably not usable as of yet as someone’s main operating system, but its idea and sheer curiosity value makes it fascinating. When it becomes stable, it will be interesting to see how a completely Win32-compatible operating system fares against Windows XP and Windows Vista.