If you want to do something resembling 'WYSIWYG´ LaTeX editing on Linux there's LyX [1] which I've been using for decades starting with the Xforms version. LyX is not really 'WYSIWYG' as that is not really what LaTeX is meant for. Here's an excerpt from the project site which describes the difference:
LyX presents the user with the familiar face of a WYSIWYG word processor. However, users familiar with Microsoft Word or WordPerfect may be perplexed by certain basic LyX behaviour. For example, repeatedly hitting the space bar has no effect! This is by design: LyX puts in the proper spacing for you, intelligently.
Think of LyX as the first WYSIWYM word processor: What You See Is What You Mean. All the common formatting intelligence of LaTeX is presented to the user through visual controls, like a table-of-contents window acting as an outline browser, "live" reference links (to figure and table captions, sections, pages and literature citations), automatic multilevel section and list numbering, and more. You tell LyX how to treat particular words and lines in your document: e.g., this is standard text, this is a Section title, this is a footnote, this is a caption beneath an inserted graphic. As you click your selections, the WYSIWYM interface gives you clean, straightforward "visual clues" (actually, very WYSIWYG-like).
Looks like I might like the UI.
