There are many, many solutions from all around to aid in linear workflow in Maya, from scripts to manage gamma nodes, right down to linear shaders for Mental Ray. As there is no one size fits all solution, it basically comes down to whatever seems to suite your own workflow, and what you find to be the easiest implementation for that workflow.
The shader is really simple and fast, it has been used in production for more than 8 months without any problem and can be used to convert textures, colorswatches or whatever you need
Having said that, those that are accustom to using NUKE generally have a colorspace node that assist in converting segments into linear color, and it is to this end that Luca Fiorentini has created n_ColorSpace. Check out the ColorSpace Node for Maya Linear Color Conversions here.
n_ColorSpace is a NUKE like colorspace node for Maya Mental Ray that will allow you to set an input colorspace between sRGB, rec709, gamma 2.2 and gamma 1.8 essentially doing all the conversion math for you and returns a linear color or texture as an output. There is also a familiar gain and offset slider to affect existing shader network file nodes, and the n_ColorSpace will also work with the regular Maya render pass system.
