…Come to think of it, that sounded a lot like a spam post.

First, get WINE (obviously). For best results, add the WINE PPAs. This allows you to use the latest WINE release:

1. Go to System>Administration>Software Sources. You will be prompted for a password.
2. Click on the “Third Party Software” tab
3. add the appropriate PPA to this list by clicking on “Add”. The PPAs are according to your Ubuntu Version. If you are not sure which version you are using, go to System>About Ubuntu, and look at the second paragraph. It should say something like “Thank you for your interest in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron”.  Anyway, here are the PPAs:

• ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa (for 9.10)
• deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt jaunty main #WineHQ – Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackalope” (for 9.04)
• deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt intrepid main #WineHQ – Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex” (for 8.10)
• deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main #WineHQ – Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron”  (for 8.04)
  

1. After Adding this you will need to vailidate it. Please download Scott Ritchie’s Key and save it to your desktop. In Software Sources, click on the “Authentcation” tab, and click “Import Key File”. Then click on “Desktop” and double-click “Scott Ritchie.gpg”.
2. Finally, you can close Software Sources. A box will pop up asking if you want to reload sources. Click this, and the window will close after a minute or so.
3. Moving on to installing WINE, go to Applications>Software Center (or Add/Remove) and type “wine” into the search box. If in software center, click on “wine windows emulator” and then “install”. If using add/remove, click the checkbox next to “wine windows emulator”, and then hit apply. Enter your password as prompted, and then close the box when completed.
4. Now to install Steam. Download this file, and double-click on it. It should open through WINE, and then follow the instructions in the installer. Enter your account info, or create a new one.
5. Once Steam is up and running go to Settings, and click on the “In-game” tab. Uncheck the box next to “Enable Steam Community in-game (Sorry, In-game does not work on WINE). Now it’s time to install your games. If you bought them through Steam (or have already activated them), simply right click on each game you want to install and click “Install Game”. If you bought them through retail (On CD/DVD), you need to activate your game. Click on “Activate a Product on Steam”. Click “next” and then you will see a License Agreement. Go ahead and click “I Agree” if you agree with the terms (or just don’t care).  You will have to enter a CD key (located on the small card inside of the game’s box. It is toward the bottom of the card).  You may be prompted to insert the game CD/DVD. Go ahead and place the CD/DVD into the drive and Steam will ask you what games you want to install. Check all that apply, let it run, and if you need to insert addtional CD/DVDs, please do so.
6. Now, go to Applications>Wine>Configure Wine. Under the applications tab, click “Add Application”. Go to Program Files>Steam>steamapps>username>game, replacing “username” with your username, and “game” with the multiplayer source game of your choosing. Double-click hl2.exe and select under the menu “Windows Version” to “Windows 98″. Save and exit. (you do not need to do this for each Source game. This will configure all multiplayer Source games you have, no matter which game’s hl2.exe you configure)
7. Open up Steam and right click on each of your Source games (yes, for each one). Click on “Properties” and then “Set launch options”.  Type “-dxlevel 81 -novid” exactly like that (but without quotes). click OK and exit.
8. Double Click on the game and Launch. Technically you’re done!

This was my method. It works perfectly for me, but your experiences may differ. Any problems? Feel free to leave a comment.

Oh, there are some problems. HDR does not seem to work, and supposedly those with ATi cards seem to have problems with the games crashing. Performance is not as nearly as good as native Windows, but still playable (you’ll only get around 70fps compared to say 150fps in close combat), and changing resolution through game menus does not work.

Another “Launch option” I reccomend is “-w”. Setting “-w” will force the resoultion. For example, “-w 1280″ will set the resolution to 1280×1024, or “-w 800″ will set it to 800×600. Since you can’t exactly set the resolution in the menus, adding this option will greatly increase quality and/or performance, denpending on your setting.

Anyway, now on to my life. I recently downloaded the Chromium browser alpha, and I really like it so far. Although I wish it were more like Epiphany (for those who don’t know, I recently discovered Epiphany had an adblock. I’m using it from now on, since it’s so fast!) as far as extensions. Actually, what I just said wasn’t fair. Chromium’s still in alpha, and has quite a bit to go, so… Sorry.

I have tried Google Chrome on Windows. Although it is fast, lack of a Linux port saddened me a bit. I hope Chromium takes off, and If not, well, I’m sticking with Epiphany.