No, i didn't use ovi using wine at all. I just wanted to be able to transfer music/video via ubuntu. Anyway I have good news. I managed to get Rhythmbox to transfer music fine and the USB mass storage mode works fine.
For rhymbox i needed to create a 'hidden dot file' ( .is_audio_player ) in the root of the n8 drive. The contents of it would be something like
output_formats=video/x-msvideo, audio/mpeg, audio/mp4, video/mp4
audio_folders=Music/
folder_depth=2
coverartfilename=cover.jpg
coverartfiletype=jpeg
coverartsize=200
name=N8
The device does show up but the 'name' attribute is not picked up. The device shows up as something else. Anyway, music gets synced fine under the Music folder with Artist/Album hierarchy. Also embed picture art INTO the mp3 file and it will show up fine on the N8.
:-)
