"If my ideas are indeed valuable, what is the best way to gain anything from them without investing too much financially? " If they're valuable, you wont care what the upfront is, because you're hoping to make a return. Quit being such a loser.

Dont be an idiot. Sell now while somebody wants it. Otherwise, they're going to look at your project, tweak/add a few features, rebrand it as their own and become super-rich, the same way Digg took Slashdots idea, let the users submit stories, and now has blown /. out of the water.

Those companies render the output on Linux. The creation takes place on a Mac.

Hell, just use ghost or acronis, save it as in image, and restore it inside vmware. fail