I run Arch Linux with XFCE. For poker I run an XP virtual machine. Wine may work for poker clients and possibly work for PT / HEM but the HUD will not AFAIK. I believe I've seen someone say they got the HUD working after a lot of work, but with WINE any update to the poker client or tracker software may break it. The only reliable way to play poker on linux with a working HUD and tracker is using a VM. *So its no really on linux, except for the trackers database (postgresql) on the linux host which is more efficient.
I first switched to linux because I could barely run HEM, postgresql and everything else with my 1 gig of ram. The switch to ubuntu and an xp vm saved me around 300 megs of ram even after giving the VM half my 1 gig.