To get Eschalon Book 1 running on Ubuntu 8.10 32bits, you need to install the libstdc++5 package. (This was found through trial and error on ubuntu forums).

Also, I wanted to ask, is the a .svg logo of the game available? The panel application launchers only accept .svg's for their icons (good reason I suppose).

strange, I'm using the latest gnome 2.24 desktop (but not ubuntu), and I can add the png icon in the panel.
I don't see the point in accepting only svg in the panel, except if you want to have a panel with a height more than 120 px

Actually nevermind on the svg, it does accept png's and gif's. I was using the wrong folder.