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Your third point is very out of date. Maya, Softimage both run on Linux natively, it's a known fact that film studios use Linux workstations for their CG.

Lord of The Rings trilogy CG being one as a example which used Linux workstations.

Edited 2009-05-05 23:10 UTC

An do not forget Maya is not the only one!

You also can use Softimage (just purchased by Autodesk - the same supplier as Maya): http://www.softimage.com/ .

And do not forget Houdini: http://www.sidefx.com/ .

Both programs have a native Linux version. Softimage is a bit critical as what distro you could use (Centos 5.2 works great, but OpenSUSE with some tweaks works also), and Houdini works on all distro's I tried so far. Tip: Houdini has a fully working demo version. The only limitation is a low resolution and small watermark rendering. There is also a $99 version that has no watermarks and higer resolution. Very affordable...

Yeah, multimedia on Linux sucks big time. I installed Windows just to get Movie Maker. I have tried a number of video editing software on Linux but, at least to me, it's not very user friendly.

Gimp does the work for me as a photographer when I only have to do some color channel changes, or adjust contrast or lightness. But their interface is a pain for me. I want ONE window.

But I hope that the major distros will eventually step in and help out on developing some stuff to make multimedia on Linux as awesome as Windows / Mac.

I was going to mod you up, but I can't for the life of me tell if that's sarcasm of the best kind, or you actually hold up windows movie maker as a great piece of multimedia software.

Have you looked at Gimpshop. All the functions of GIMP with a Photoshop like interface from what I hear.

For multimedia; that's mostly an issue of codecs. I believe Suse/OpenSuse include full codecs thanks to Novell. Codec packs are available for purchase to cover the patent license fees. LinDVD, from the makers of WinDVD, covers your movie watching needs. Mandriva Powerpack includes all the multimedia love also at a reasonable price.

There are also some multimedia specific distributions which include a ton of related software but I can't comment on how they stack up for media professionals.