1) Make sure that your computer meets the recommended requirements for Silkroad (Pentium 4 or higher, 512MB RAM, 3D and DirectX 9.0b compatible video card, and 3GB of free HDD space) and that you have the necessary drivers for your graphics card.
2) Follow the instructions at

to add the wine repository, then follow the directions to use Synaptic or Terminal to download and install the package.
3) Run "winecfg" in terminal (without the quotes) and set compatibility to Windows 98.
4) Download the Silkroad client and unzip it if you need to. Then run "wine executable.exe" (without quotes and replace executable.exe with the silkroad installer exe)
5) Run the client either from Applications>Wine>Programs>Joymax>Silkroad or from your Desktop.
6) Wait for patching to complete.
7) Hit play.