Ok. You'll have to excuse this Linux ignoramus who wouldn't know the difference. :)

No worries. Linux doesn't use EXEs for executables (also, libraries aren't dlls either). Seems it can execute literally anything EXCEPT exes. Very confusing, but that is how you'd know. :D

Thanks so much for your help, desic! It got me a bit further along, definitely, but it didn't seem to fix the problem completely. Now it gives me errors telling me gemrb.6.in does not exist, gemrb.spec.in does not exist. Like you said, It was giving warnings about SDL2 and VLC not being found, so I tried to see if it would work if I added those dev packages: I couldn't find SDL2s, but I added for VLC, and that didn't help. In the error log file (I hope I'm not doing something stupidly unsecure by pasting that) it mentioned something about "Id flags: The output was: No such file or directory", which made me think I might have followed your instructions wrong (although I directly copied and pasted it without changing (or really even understanding) what you had done.

Thank you so much for your help! You have any idea for what further I could do? Is it some stupid simple mistake I made? Or is it too dense to figure out? I'd follow the instructions you linked, but I really don't understand them, and I'm not sure how exactly to cleanly remove what I had done so far so as to start again with those. Hopefully that wouldn't be necessary...

It looks like g++ didn't install correctly (or at all). Try running:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install g++

let me know if you get any errors when you run this.

sdl2 errors: sdl2 is only required to compile with opengl - which is still experimental and not recommended.
vlc errors: I think VLC is only required if you are installing games with the MAC installer.
Since both of these are optional, you don't need them to keep going.

As far as cleaning up, right now, everything is contained in your build directory. You can delete everything from that directory and start again without worry. Nothing will be installed anywhere else until you run the make install command.

If you want to keep the program isolated and easy to remove from your computer, you can install it to /opt by running:
cmake -DLAYOUT="opt" -DPREFIX=/opt/gemrb ..
from within your build directory (as opposed to the "cmake .." recommended in the install document). This way, all the gemrb program files will be entirely localized in it's own directory within /opt/gemrb after it is installed and it will be easy to uninstall.

I updated g++ (it seemed it didn't need to, 0 to update, 0 to reinstall, etc.), but it made no difference. I'm getting the same errors:

gemrb.6.in does not exist
CMakeLists.txt:388 (CONFIGURE_FILE) configure_file problem configuring file.

CMakeLists.txt:394 (ADD_SUBDIRECTORY):
add_subdirectory given source "gemrb" which is not an existing directory.

gemrb.spec.in does not exist
CMakeLists.txt:413 (CONFIGURE_FILE): configure_file problem configuring file.

You so much for this! One problem; I modify my notice dimension but all it does is modify the dimension the box that it features in, not the real activity itself. Any way to [url=http://RS 3 Gold ]RS 3 Gold [/url] fix this? I was 'waylaid' on the way to the Valuable Arm and my figures got trapped in an limitless fight against a finish of invisible pets, bandits and hobgoblins.

I think you should try to build the project from a fresh source. Delete the gemrb-0.8.1 directory and extract the tar.gz file again - preferably from a new download. That should get you over this particular hurdle.

I guess that is the simplest way to fix it for now. I'll go through it again and update. I've been getting it from the sourceforge page here. Is there somewhere better to get it from?

It works!
I had built GemRB in a build folder inside the gemrb-0.8.1 in my home folder, and despite changing the config file to have all the paths point to there (instead of the game), it was still trying to access .gemrb. So in the end I just copied the gemrb folder to there and renamed it .gemrb, and then I also had to copy the contents of usr/local/share/gemrb to that same folder (even though it was pointing to that in the paths, and I hadn't created that folder directly). Still, after all that, it worked!

I'm just in the tutorial right now (and am having issues where the guy goes on to the next step while I'm still in the previous one, and since I'm in the inventory screen, I end up not being able to click anything, but that is small stuff).

You have no idea how grateful I am. Not that I can do anything to thank you enough, but I've named my character Desic :D (here's hoping you're a female elf sorcerer).

I'm glad it worked for you! Sometimes getting the game to work is half the fun!

You can imagine me as an elvish sorceress if you wish, but you risk being sorely disapointed if we ever meet... :)

If you are using Ubuntu 14.04 i386, yes, if you do not trust playdeb to provide a clean package.

Ouch, that was cringy to read; I better not comment. Thanks Desic.

Since I last posted, GemRB is now available Debian directly (testing and unstable), so some apt sorcery should do.

GemRB is also now officially supported on Ubuntu 14.10 as well. Since Linux Mint has decided to base all their releases on LTS versions of Ubuntu, I don't think we'll gemRB officially supported in Mint for some time though.

Quick question - since GemRB works on Android, is it somewhat optimized for touch screens? I ask because I've played BG:EE on my Surface Pro and its pretty good, but it only works well if I use my stylus, trying to just use touch doesn't work very well.