I recently had to do a forced migration to Linux (Windows destroyed itself, and had no budget for a new computer).
I am happy to say that I have been able to get Rome TW and BI running with very little trouble on my new Linux OS (Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat). I have searched the forum for similar topics, but there don't seem to be that many people using Linux and playing Total War. Just curious if there are. I hope to update this topic as new experiences with Rome on Linux occur.