Hey, another Battle for Middle Earth fan!
I actually keep a Windows dual boot specifically for BFME online play (since BFME only works singleplayer on Linux). It’s been making a comeback recently, there were 51 people online (!!! New record) just this Sunday. We played 3v3s, 4v4s, FFAs, you name it. Was a lot of fun 😄
In any case, check out the 2.22 launcher; even for offline play, it’s got built-in support for a lot of mods and plugins, and runs decently under Linux: https://www.moddb.com/mods/battle-for-middle-earth-patch-222/downloads/patch-222
Pine64s “problem” was they only ever did the hardware. Like they sponsor some software, but they make and sell hardware. They gained a lot of popularity from the Pinephone, but very little changed internally at Pine64. They’re still the same they always were