So alas, it seems our laptop is dying...and with it Windows 7. The only reason I'm sad about this is I need to use it for 2 applications: Alibre Design 2011 (proprietary CAD software) and XYZWare (a 3D printing manager). The best possible scenario is that I could somehow get these things working on my linux desktop machine...so I'd like to ask the community if they have been able to get Alibre Design or XYZWare working on linux?

I have tried Alibre and failed during initial install. I'm not as concerned with the printer software, as I think there is a workaround for it possibly using slic3r.

Any help would be much appreciated.
Let me know what info I should supply for troubleshooting if it gets that far.