Install Apple Safari Browser On Ubuntu Linux 7.10 With PlayOnLinux

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Last edited 01/18/2008

This guide explains how you can install Apple’s Safari browser on Ubuntu 7.10. As there is no Linux version of Safari, we will run it under Wine. We will use a tool called PlayOnLinux to install Safari under Wine. With PlayOnLinux you can install lots of Windows games and some Windows applications (such as Office 2003, IE6, MS Money, etc.) on Linux. Installing Safari on Linux is good for people such as web designers who have switched to Linux but still need to test their web sites in other browsers.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Installing PlayOnLinux

Open Firefox and go to http://www.playonlinux.com/en/download.html. Click on the link reading Click here for the .deb package:

In the Firefox download dialogue, select Open with GDebi Package Installer (default):

After the download has finished, the Package Installer comes up. Click on the Install Package button:

Type in your password:

Afterwards, the dependencies of PlayOnLinux are being downloaded and installed:

Next, PlayOnLinux is being installed:

After the installation you can click on Close and leave the Package Installer:

2 Starting PlayOnLinux For The First Time

Now open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal):

We install the package cabextract (which is needed to extract .exe files) like this:

sudo apt-get install cabextract

Afterwards, we start PlayOnLinux by typing:

playonlinux

If 3D aceleration isn’t enabled on your desktop and you get a warning like in the below image, you can click it away. It’s not important (at least for Safari – this might be different if you want to install Windows games which I haven’t tried):

Now PlayOnLinux is being initialized. Click your way through the following dialogues (which are in French – we will change PlayOnLinux’ language soon):

Click on TÃ©lecharger (means Download in French):

Click on Suivant (means Next):

Finally, we get to the PlayOnLinux window:

3 Configuring PlayOnLinux

First let’s change the language of PlayOnLinux (if French isn’t your mother tongue). Go to Options > Langue:

Click on Suivant:

Select your preferred language and click on Suivant:

The change will take effect after a restart of PlayOnLinux (which we will do later – we still have to configure a few other things):

Next we set up the repositories where PlayOnLinux downloads its scripts from (there are scripts for each Windows application that PlayOnLinux can install to run under Wine). Go to Options > DÃ©pots:

Enable the Community repository:

Afterwards do the same again for the WorkOnLinux repository:

Finally we create a menu entry for PlayOnLinux in the Applications menu. Go to Options > Tableaux de bord…

… and click on Yes:

Now we must restart our desktop session. Press CTRL + ALT+ Backspace and log in again.

4 Installing Safari

Now start PlayOnLinux again, this time by using its menu entry (Applications > PlayOnLinux > PlayOnLinux):

After PlayOnLinux has started, click on the Install button:

The Installation wizard starts. Select WorkOnLinux and click on Next:

In the next step select Safari and click on Install:

Click on Install again:

Select Next…

… then Download:

Click on Next:

Install Microsoft Visual C++ by accepting its license:

The next window tells us that we must download the Safari .exe file from Apple before we can proceed:

Open Firefox and go to http://www.apple.com/safari/download/ (although PlayOnLinux displays another URL in the previous image). Select Safari for Windows XP or Vista (without Quicktime) and click on the Download Safari 3 Beta button:

Save the file somewhere on your computer:

Back in PlayOnLinux, click on Next…

… and then on Browse:

Select the Safari executable you’ve just downloaded from your hard drive…

… and click on Next:

The next message tells us to deselect Install Bonjour for Windows and Install Apple Software Update during the Safari setup – please keep this in mind, we’ll need it soon:

The Safari installer starts. Click on Next >:

Accept the Safari license:

Now it’s time to disable Install Bonjour for Windows as well as the Apple updates. This is important – otherwise Safari might not work as expected on Linux: