Any Linux users interested in such a cool adventure game?
The game is more stable under Linux than in Windows XP (at least for me :) )
How to play: forget about the installer created desktop icon or menu entry. Instead run the game from the command line. Cd to the directory where the game resides then start it with: wine ./sntrm.exe -w. A warning message pops up saying operation under Windows NT is not supported.. press OK and play :)
I'm currently playing on chapter 6 without a hitch or crash.
I highly recommend this game for every adventure fan.
WINE 1.1.32
Fedora 11 x86

Cool! Glad it's going so smooth for you. Do you get voices during conversations with NPCs? Does your pointer flicker? I might consider installing Wine on my Mac to play it if it's error-free.

Finished the game yesterday using the latest wine, it worked ok. No flickering or other sound/gfx related problems. Just make sure it set to windowed mode. Without the -w switch wine throws an exception on starting the game. Also tried it via Crossover Games 8, but it didn't start. Voice is working during conversations with the fixed sntrm.exe. Hope you'll enjoy too.
p.s: One of the wine's registry entry seems to be important running the game properly. That's DirectDrawRenderer. It must be set to opengl.

This still doesn't work for me, I can play the first chapter, but after that the game shuts down.

Use the latest wine development version(1.1.33), they've corrected a bug that prevented Sanitarium entering the 2nd chapter using the default DirectDraw renderer (that's gdi). With previous wine version try to change that wine registry key to opengl.

I can confirm that the game runs without problems using the method above on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala with Wine 1.1.37.
Additionally, there was no workaround needed to enter the second chapter.

I'v just tested this game on Linux (Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala). First, it didn't work with default wine installation. Then I decided to install development release of "wine". I added winehq repository to "software sources" list and then upgraded wine to 1.1.41.
You can find a detailed information how to upgrade to development release of "wine" here: http://www.winehq.org/download/deb
I managed to run the game in windowed mode as SempreFi suggested above:
$ cd .wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/GOG.com/Sanitarium/
$ wine ./sntrm.exe -w
Now the game works fine. No serious problem after the first chapter.
By the way, did I mention that I couldn't make this game work on my XP? I think GOG should start supporting Linux instead of windos :)
EDIT: It also runs fullscreen!

Just figured I'd mention Sanitarium is running fine under the latest stable release of wine
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=19804

Had a number of crash issues running with default settings.

Arch Linux fully up to date
wine 1.3.30
nvidia drivers

to keep the game from randomly crashing, I had to set the following regedits:

DirectDrawRendeder=opengl
OffscreenRenderingMode=backbuffer
RenderTargetLockMode=readtex

Tons of ways to do this, I find winetricks to be the easiest. I have no idea what any of these options do - I simply chose different options until it stopped crashing.

Running Arch Linux 64bit up to date as august, 6h 2012.
Wine 1.5.10
Intel GMA 4500MHD using native drivers

As previously stated, the game worked fine running it through sntrm.exe instead the default launcher. I had found only one crash, but it didn't happened again. I had wine configured to run into a virtual desktop (800x600), so I guess it's running "Fullscreen".

About snarkout regedits... where are you configuring that? I don't understand your post :(

I'm going to add the entry to the wine database :)

Not a single crash in entire game. Played it from beginning to end using Linux Mint 9, Ubuntu 10.04 and Arch Linux.

Completely different experience than in Vista in which Chapter 2 crashed all the time and and older XP box in which I couldn't complete Chapter 3 because it kept crashing all the time.

Nevertheless a great game, and it was the reason I joined GOG in the first place.

Adding my experience here:

Debian 8 (current Stable) 64 bit Xfce, Wine 1.6.2.

The game runs normally but not from the menu entry or through a terminal command, just by double clicking on sntrm.exe in the file browser. I wonder what difference (what command double clicking launches) makes this way. It works both windowed (emulated desktop) and fullscreen changing the settings for the .exe in winecfg.

I've just started the game, making it through the VCR scene and I'm now at the second chapter. It sometimes crashes so I took the habit to save often.

I've just finished the whole game. Man it was a good one!

Initially it would always crash at the "Mother" cutscene in the "The Innocent Abandoned" chapter, but it worked fine once I applied the tweaks mentioned here:

forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=31912#p120691 (for some reason I can't post links)

$ winetricks ddr=gdi
Executing w_do_call ddr=gdi
Executing load_ddr gdi
Setting Direct3D/DirectDrawRenderer to gdi
Executing wine regedit C:\windows\Temp\_ddr=gdi\set-wined3d.reg
Executing wine64 regedit C:\windows\Temp\_ddr=gdi\set-wined3d.reg


I'm running wine-4.0 (Ubuntu 4.0-1) on Ubuntu 19.04