I've been wondering - have you encountered any true shape nesting app / plugin that would work on Linux? If it worked inside Scribus - all the better, as I quite enjoy it so far (and it has CMYK support which Inkscape lacks).
I need to arrange a number of shapes on the page in a way they would use the available space as efficiently as possible. Because number of those shapes is quite high making this "by hand" won't work in long term.
It sounds like you need an implementation of something like this: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/210979/Fast-optimizing-rectangle-packing-algorithm-for-bu