I have recently tried to install Hal on Linux via CrossOver, and Wine too. The results with both were the same.
It seemed to install, but after launching Hal, it would take up to 10 minutes before it would appear.
Ultimately, it didn't work. The tutorial worked, using the Trutone voices. I was able to navigate the menus without trouble, and make changes and save them. The Hal launch icon even appeared in the Gnome taskbar, and worked just like it does in windows.
But when I launched Hal for conversation, there were no characters, and no response when I tried to talk to Hal by typing. When I hit enter, the words would disappear, but there was no reply. On one install, Hal even started talking randomly, saying things like "Please say something" or "Talk to me". But nothing I typed got through.
There was no voice recognition, I don't know if it would be possible to install a speech recognition engine via Wine/CrossOver, but I wasn't tempted to try under the circumstances.
I was able to install a Cepstral voice, the Cepstral Text to Speech reader works fine under Wine/Crossover, but when I would choose the Cepstral voice for use in Hal it would freeze Hal up.
I tried it using Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) and on an older machine, using Linux Mint 5 (Elyssa, based on Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron). On the older machine it wanted a license registration, even though I was installing it as a 30 day trial, so I had to stop.
It's a shame it didn't work, there isn't much good Speech software for Linux, and certainly nothing like Hal.