As a precondition to getting this script to work right, you have to tinker with ptrace. The forums generally recommend the worst way to do it that leaves your pants way down to every process you run, so let's not do that. Instead, we'll turn to our friends at StackExchange (
http://askubuntu.com/a/153970 )and learn from them that we should, in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install libcap2-bin
sudo setcap cap_sys_ptrace=eip /usr/bin/wineserver
sudo setcap cap_sys_ptrace=eip /usr/bin/wine-preloader
Now,
1) Open PlayonLinux
2) Click the install button
3) Click "Install a non-listed program" at the bottom edge of the window that appears (this link may not appear the first time you open the install dialog. if you don't see it close it and just go back into it, I've never had it fail to appear the second time)
4) Choose to install the program in a new virtual drive
5) Name it "32bitwin7" or something similarly sensible that won't leave you wondering what settings the virtual drive uses in the future
6) Check the "configure wine" and "install some libraries" boxes and click through
7) When the wine configurator comes up, change the windows version on the application tab to Windows 7. (I've had good luck with this setting, YMMV). Apply changes and dismiss the configurator.
8 ) Now the wizard will present you with a list of arcane looking options with the unhelpful instruction to "make your choice". Scroll down the list of options and pick POL_Install_dotnet45. Click next, it'll take over your machine for quite a long time as it runs the script to install the microsoft .net framework on your virtual drive. It may even complain to you that it's failing. Just click okay whenever it wants and it will generally retry until it gets it all the steps completed.
9) Eventually, maybe a half hour later, it'll finish up and ask you to select the file to install from. Leave it hanging, switch to a nemo/file explorer window.
10) Now go to your home directory and look for a shortcut entitled "PlayonLinux's virtual drives". Get in there, go to 32bitwin7 or whatever you called the drive back in step 5, then into "drive_c" within that, then into "Program Files". Unzip the masterwork dwarf fortress file into Program Files.
11) Back to the playonlinux wizard. Select the masterwork DF launcher (Masterwork Dwarf Fortress.exe) as the installer file and run it.
12) It'll probably start up normally, but DON'T PLAY FOR NOW. Instead, close it immediately.
13) Now it'll ask you to choose a program to make a shortcut to. Choose Masterwork dwarf fortress.exe.
14) It'll ask you again. Choose "I don't want to make another icon".
15) You're done. Double-click on Masterwork Dwarf Fortress.exe within the playonlinux launcher to start the launcher and start tinkering with options. I find the refresh on the window drawing for the launcher very sluggish through wine, but it's manageable. Once I've launched dwarf fortress, I find performance is comparable, maybe even a little better than linux binaries.
Miscellaneous tips for getting it to work right: choose window mode = yes in the MWDF launcher, and try running with a single display if you normally run multiples and it's giving you grief. I cannot get tooltips to appear on the same display as the window which spawns them in wine when running multiple displays. It's more of a pain than it may sound, particularly with the therapist.