+ Either of :
+ * a Unix-like system (including Windows with cygwin)
+ * Windows 2000 or newer
+ * Mac OS 10.2 or newer
+
+ A decent LaTeX2e installation (e.g. teTeX for unix) not older
+ than 1995/12/01.
+ Python 2.3 or later to convert old LyX files and for helper scripts
+ (note that you need at least Python 2.3.4 for exporting LyX files
+ to a pre-unicode format, as previous versions are affected by a bug
+ about the normalization of unicode strings)
+
+How does the LyX version scheme work?
+
+ LyX uses a contiguous numbering scheme for versions, where a
+ number "1.x.y" indicates a stable release '1.x', maintenance
+ release 'y'. In other words, LyX 1.5.0 was the first stable
+ release in the 1.5-series of LyX. At the time of writing, the
+ latest maintenance release in the 1.5-series was LyX 1.5.2
+
+ Please note that maintenance releases are designed primarily to
+ fix bugs, and that the file format will _never_ change due to a
+ maintenance release.
+
+ In addition to the stable releases and maintenance releases, some
+ users may want to give a ''release candidate'' a try. This is a
+ release that should be stable enough for daily work, but yet may
+ be potentially unstable. If no major bugs are found, the release
+ candiate is soon released as the first stable release in a a new
+ series. To summarize, there are three possible types of file names
+ that are of interest to normal users:
+
+ lyx-1.5.0.tar.gz -- stable release, first in the 1.5-series
+ lyx-1.5.5.tar.gz -- fifth maintenance release of LyX 1.5
+ lyx-1.5.0rc1.tar.gz -- potentially unstable release candidate
+
+ Note that the goal is not parallel development as for the linux
+ kernel --the team is too small to afford that-- but rather to
+ include all the simple and safe bug fixes. This is so that the
+ maintenance burden on us is not too high, and so that system
+ administrators can install new releases without fear. Experience
+ shows that these releases will contain a few new features, and
+ that the bulk of the patches will be documentation updates.
+
+ If you get the source from Subversion, the version string will
+ look like one of:
+
+ 1.5.1svn -- this is the stable branch on which maintenance
+ release 1.5.1 will eventually be tagged.
+ 1.6.0svn -- this is the main branch on which stable
+ release 1.6.0 will eventually be tagged.