Lyx works right out of the box in OpenSuse 11 (I compiled it and just had to make sure that I had all the Latex packages installed… and QT4).
For those interested, here’s how to use Bibtex in Lyx (Bibtex allows you to easily manage references in your papers).
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You should download a reference manager. The Lyx site has many options. I use Pybliographic and it works neat.
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Once you have this reference manager, play around and figure out how you can add references in it with the Tex syntax (the one that looks like code, with the author, title, year and so on). Save your first file somewhere you can find it easily once you open Lyx. A GREAT tool for easily getting the Tex syntax is in Google Scholar. Go to the Preference link (in Scholar’s main page) and tell it to Show links to import citations into Bibtex. Save your changes, go back to Scholar and make any search. You’ll see that it now allows you to import to Bibtex. Click on that link below any search result and you’ll find the Tex syntax. Copy and paste it to your reference manager. Save the file and make sure it has a .bib extension.
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Open Lyx. Go to Inser->List/TOC Bibtex, and a dialog appears. click Add and browse to the file you saved with the references you just did. You can choose any reference style. I use Chicago.
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Now Lyx knows where to look for references. All you have to do now is insert the citation wherever you need it. If you don’t know how to, read the user’s guide.
This is far from being a thorough walkthrough, but hey, you can manage your way around Linux, you can manage your way around pretty much anything.
Enjoy your killer papers (nerds!).