I too tried dcraw and among other things (file size?), I never really liked the white balance afterward.

Vuescan on the other hand, is very well built. It has a linux version and was made for film and flatbed scanners (some of which have little to no linux support otherwise), but it can also scan from CRW files (canon raws). It still has all the flexibility you get with film scanners when you scan from raws (gamma, white balance, etc), and it does ICC profiles, too. You can even calibrate using your IT8 target if you have one.

Sure it's not free, but I think they deserve $60-$80 for their work.