For something a bit more graphical, try AbiWord, which is a very nice GPLed word processor. It seems to be able to load Word files fine. At a first glance I can't immediately see how to save them in that format, but a review in http://www.wininformant.com/display.asp?ID=2213 (amusing location) says that it can, as well as its native XML-based format and a number of others. It's also distributed with Debian, or you can download it in source or binary form from:
http://www.abisource.com/ http://www.abisource.com/dev_download.phtml http://download.abisource.com/releases/0.7.11/linux/i386/
unpack & run "install.sh"
will prompt for installation dir Installation path for AbiSuite [/usr/local/AbiSuite]: /opt/wp/abiSuite
Optionally can create symbolic links in another dir. Suggest to create them manually, 'cause it create links with absolute path.
cd /opt/bin lns /opt/wp/abiSuite/bin/AbiWord lns /opt/wp/abiSuite/bin/AbiWord abiword