I too am suffering from the same problem. I have two computers, a laptop and a desktop. On both I have recently done fresh installs of Ubuntu 8.10. and Wine 1.1.8. The laptop, an old Toshiba, has no problems with font tearing in Wine. However the desktop exhibits the same problem as 'jerlinux'. I have tried different display drivers, font settings in 'System/Preferences/Appearance/' and removing and reinstalling Wine. No luck [Crying or Very sad] . Alas I have no idea what comes next.
