I've been running EQ in linux for many years now. I find that it's more stable and plays nicer with the window manager in wine that it does in windows.
However, getting to a playable state in wine can be tricky if you're unfamiliar with the console or linux in general.
I've moved over to Linux Mint 17, KDE edition (based on ubuntu 14.04 LTS) as it has been the best LTS since 12.04 in my experience. I doubt you'll find much difference in what you need for wine from distro to distro so use whatever you're comfortable with.
You'll want to start here:
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManag...rsion&iId=2939
Code:
apt-get install wine winetricks ttf-mscorefonts-installer
That will get you started, then you'll need to run winetricks from console and get some windows components.
If memory serves you will need:
d3dx9_36
gdiplus
vcrun2008
gecko (which should be handled by your distribution, but I found some quirks with it when installing on my daughter's PC. There appear to be some additional workarounds for AMD cpu's and 64-bit installs, but it's all documented and be found with searches.)
I know I'm not the only one around here running EQ in linux so there are several sources for ini examples or even patched DLL's, just ask.