I found SoF cheap on ebay and it works great in linux under wine. In fact, I'm always baffled when people talk about it being unstable, but apparently it sucks in windows. I can't speak for newer versions, but unless they've made drastic architectural changes to the client, they should work similarly.
The biggest issue with getting it working at that time had to do with models not showing up, which can be fixed with a patched dll. (I can send you mine if you need it. It
might work, but you'll want to back up the original)
With newer versions of wine, this may no longer be an issue at all, I don't honestly know.
I also had to make some changes to my eqclient.ini, but those should be detailed in the comments below. If you can't find them there I can post mine later.
Everything you need should be in the comments.
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...rsion&iId=2939
I use Ubuntu 10.04 and keep wine up to date with their own repository.
http://www.winehq.org/download/ubuntu
You might also want winetricks. It makes installing necessary windows libs a breeze. For EQ you'll at least need directx.
http://wiki.winehq.org/winetricks
Beyond that, setting up EQ for emu works just like it does in the regular play guide.