Although my stats prove differently, studies still show that most Internet users still use Internet Explorer 6.

When building websites, it’s important to keep an eye on these statistics, especially since browsers tend to display websites differently. IE up to version 6 have an own agenda when it comes to displaying contents and handling styles. That’s why a web designer should also test his work in IE6, to make sure the majority of visitors see the site the way it’s supposed to look.

But Microsoft has no Linux version of Internet Explorer available. This made it difficult to test when developing on a Ubuntu system (or any Linux system for that matter). There are alternatives to get this done, like installing a Windows system with VMware or dual booting to a Windows OS. But this is so much work and can slow the process down significantly. IEs4Linux has the solution.

IEs4Linux
IEs4Linux makes installing IE on Linux a breeze. No dual booting, no unnecessary installations, “Just one easy script and you’ll get three IE versions to test your Sites. And it’s free and open source.”

The IE installations with IEs4Linux are stripped down, using only the basic functions needed to run the browser. Features like Outlook Express and media player are not installed, so the installation is much lighter.

Installation
The installation for Ubuntu systems is very easy:

In your terminal (Accesories -> Terminal in Xubuntu) type the following:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

This opens your apt sources list in gedit.
Next add or uncomment the following line if it’s not done yet:

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu feisty universe

Then add this line:

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt feisty main

Save the file and close gedit. Next, get and install the key and update:

wg et -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update

Please remove the space between wg and et.

Install wine (as engine) and cabextract (to extract files from .cab archives):

sudo apt-get install wine cabextract

Download and extract the installation script:

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

Please remove the space between wg and et.

Run the installation script:

./ies4linux

The installation script will ask some questions to know which versions of IE to download and install and whether or not to install Flashplayer 9 along. After the installation is finished, shortcut icons of of the installed IEs will be placed on the desktop.

The creators of this script urge to use these IEs for testing only. General browsing can be done with Firefox.

Legal Notice
Even though you won’t be asked for it, a legal license to install Microsoft products is required. “To install any MS program included on IEs4Linux, you need a valid Windows license. IEs4Linux will not ask for it and you can run everything without any problem even if you don’t have a license. But it is illegal and a I have nothing to do with this.”

Note
I’ve been working on this since this morning, but every time it would only save part of the post. After a while I figured out that the mod_security on my server may be blocking the wge t command when posted in an article. This will be solved as soon as Internet is regulated again.