For vector drawing have a look at Sketch (sketch.sourceforge.net). It pretty stable and has good PostScript support and Illustrator compatibility. But I don't think it is a replacement for Illustrator or Freehand.
As to TeX: the Context package (www.ntg.nl/context/) is much more modern and powerful than LaTeX, and there is a very active mailing list. It also does xml.
For technical publishing, there are projects for which TeX would be the better choice and other projects for which TeX would just be pain.
For a while, I tried to do as much as possible within Linux, but I often ended up moving artwork from Sketch to Illustrator and from the Gimp to Photoshop because the Linux programs didn't have all the functionality I needed. I think that you are better off with some commercial stuff at hand.
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For vector drawing have a look at Sketch (sketch.sourceforge.net). It pretty stable and has good PostScript support and Illustrator compatibility. But I don't think it is a replacement for Illustrator or Freehand. As to TeX: the Context package (www.ntg.nl/context/) is much more modern and powerful than LaTeX, and there is a very active mailing list. It also does xml. For technical publishing, there are projects for which TeX would be the better choice and other projects for which TeX would just be pain. For a while, I tried to do as much as possible within Linux, but I often ended up moving artwork from Sketch to Illustrator and from the Gimp to Photoshop because the Linux programs didn't have all the functionality I needed. I think that you are better off with some commercial stuff at hand.