Goal: Run Drakensang Gold Edition (AFAIK, version 1.2) German on Ubuntu 10.04 with 5.1 surround sound and nice graphics. As always, YMMV and RTFM apply.

Howto:

  1. Install Wine: sudo apt-get install wine
  2. Run setup: wine /media/cdrom0/setup.exe (could be in a different CD-ROM on your system)
  3. Click through the installation wizard without changing anything. The DirectX installation could take a long time.
  4. Get winetricks: wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
  5. Install some Windows stuff: sh winetricks d3dx9 vcrun2003 xact (I'm not sure if vcrun2003 is really necessary)
  6. Run winecfg
  7. Under the Graphics tab, enable Emulate a virtual desktop
  8. Under the Audio tab, Set DirectSound Hardware Acceleration to Emulation.
  9. Start the game: wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Drakensang/drakensang.exe -fullscreen -novideo

Based on WineHQ instructions, some dead ends and lots of swearing.