I just finished abusing save states to get a chain of 73 in Pokemon Diamond, and got my fist shiny because of it.
I was using the newest version of Ideas on Wine under Linux. I have not tested the emu for bugs that may stop you from getting far enough in a new game since I imported my save from my r4ds just did the chain then put the save back on my r4ds.
One thing to note is that you require the wifi plugin just to load a in-game save due to the fact when it gets to the main menu it starts the wireless for a few seconds to check for stuff like a wii connection. If you don't get the plugin you will only get a communication error.