Tried it before on ubuntu 9.04. I didn't go through the steps mentioned, and you could run a simulation without changing anything. Just run exe with wine.
I had to register one dll in the end, because it gave a dll missing error(or something) when I tried to modify sim-costs.
Be aware though, at times you can have a hard time figuring simple things out in ubuntu. For example installing a printer may be a hard task, if the specific printer has drivers at all for linux <.< . On the other side, the user interface beats windows with ease.
Edit: UI as in the way it looks and interacts. Doing something new can be a pain.
