I followed the steps schulte3 provided and managed to install IE8 under Ubuntu Maverick with Wine. The URL bar is not working indeed, but instead using Google as default homepage, in order to be able to test websites locally, I made a script http://localhost/redirect.php, set it default location in Tools / Internet Options and point it to whatever page I need. It is working great, best solution so far for testing websites in IE8 ! Thanks all of you involved in this project and thanks schulte3 for the tip!
