How to install IE9, IE8, or IE7 in Ubuntu

Question

I am developing one site which has chat feature in Rails. I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. I need to check that the site is IE9 because the chat feature using socket io of HTML5. I want to know that how to install IE9 in Ubuntu. I have looked at Chrome and Firefox extensions but if any standalone is available then please give me suggestion.

Answer 1

Microsoft has created some customized Windows VHDs with the purpose of allowing web designers to test websites in Internet Explorer 10, 9, 8 and 7, for FREE

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UPDATE:

Microsoft has added IE10 in their Git rep. Running the 2nd command below will install the the 3 versions along with IE10. So if you need to save some space use the 3rd command and replace 9 with 10.

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NOTE : The biggest disadvantage is the disk space required by these VHDs (as well as a large download size: 2,6 GB for IE7 and 4,1 GB for IE8 and IE9).

Make sure you have the latest `VirtualBox installed:

You'll also need curl (for both Linux and OSX) and unar (Linux only)

Open the terminal by pressing: Ctrl+Alt+T.

sudo apt-get install curl unar

then download and run the script by typing the next command:(Which will download Windows WHDs for IE7, IE8 and IE9.)

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash

If you only need one Internet Explorer version, you can run:

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="9" bash

Where "9" is the IE version you want (you can also add two versions here, like "7 9").

At this point, the download should start and it will take a while so be patient.

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After the download finishes and the archives are extracted, a new machine should show up in VirtualBox, called "IE 7", "IE 8" and/or "IE 9", depending on which versions you've selected to install.

At this point, you can delete the downloaded archives if you want to free up some space - you can find them under ~/.ievms/vhd/ (make sure you only delete the .exe and .rar files and keep the .vhd and .vmc files).

Now you can start testing your website in IE9, IE8 and IE7 under Linux and the password for all the VMs is "Password1".

SOURCE of the HOWTO: http://www.webupd8.org/

Answer 2

I suggest not going with wine, playonlinux and other not-native solutions as they will only give you an emulated version of IE9, not real IE9. These things matter when developing. A bit bloated but right solution is going for a virtual machine with IE9. Get ISOS from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11575 and virtualbox (or other) from sudo apt-get install virtualbox.

Answer 3

You can install Internet Explorer, but as far as I know only versions 8 and below.

Here's how. I use PlayOnLinux, because it makes using WINE so much easier. If you don't have PlayOnLinux, install it from the Ubuntu Software Centre (if you want the latest version, go to the PlayOnLinux download page, click on "Ubuntu", and follow the instructions).

• Open PlayOnLinux. Wait a few seconds while it refreshes (the status bar at the bottom).
• Click on the big "+ Install" button. A new window opens.
• Click on the "Internet" button.
• Click on "Internet Explorer 8".
• Click on "Install".

• An installation wizard appears. Click Next; wait a bit.
• IE8 will start to install, asking you a question and then to accept the license terms. It will prompt you to install updates; clear this check-box and press Next.
• Wait a bit longer.
• When prompted, select "Restart now (recommended)". This will not restart your computer; instead, PlayOnLinux will simulate a Windows restart.

Now, you will have an Internet Explorer icon on your desktop and another within the PlayOnLinux window. You can double-click either of these to start IE8.

Note that the display will not precisely match that on Windows for several reasons, but at least it will give you IE8 on Ubuntu!

Answer 4

There's no way you can install IE in Ubuntu and test it, even with wine,because it contains too many dependencies .

1. You could try going for online websites that load your site for you and show you the results like http://www.browserstack.com/test-in-internet-explorer .A simple google search would give u a list of other similar tools.

2. You could also try installing a VM and install a windows OS into it and test your websites in it. some examples of VM are VirtualBox and vmware both are Opensource solutions.

3. You can try installing IE6 in wine and try it out , but its too outdates. You would need to test it in IE7,IE8 and IE9 too.

Answer 5

For the best result, you should try to install IE 9 in VMware (unless you need any 3D acceleration--that will fail).

However you can try first to change the user agent with an addon on Firefox to it be recognized as IE 9, just to check if it loads and such.

Answer 6

Microsoft has now released all of their vm's for internet testing on modern.ie and they're available for virtualbox.

Answer 7

I can't believe nobody has posted this yet - but what about Browserling? They provide a virtual machine that you can access online with both IE9 and IE10 (if you upgrade to a paid account, you can use IE7 and IE8 too).

Answer 8

I don't think there's a good solution to this.

You could try CrossOver Office or IEs4Linux, which uses Wine, but I doubt the result will be very good.

Alternatively you could install Windows on a virtual machine such as VirtualBox and do your testings with real IE.

Answer 9

first install the PlayOnLinux application, and then using it you can install the IE9 on your ubuntu system. you can use the following command to install it:-

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

once it is installed, run it from your dash, click on install button in its UI search for internet explorer; once found select it and click on install button.

Answer 10

I have Wine installed on my netbook and if you open winefile (at a terminal) you can choose the Wine C: drive. In there, open Program Files, Internet Explorer, and there is an iexplore.exe file. This works for me but is extremely slow on SSL sites. However, I have no idea what version of IE this is running as. I also have a Windows XP Pro VM on my netbook which runs faster than the native Windows which came with the original hardware.