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My first novel was written in OpenOffice (I've now moved to LibreOffice since Oracle took over and more or less dumped OpenOffice) and it works well.
However I got the tip to try Scrivener, and I have to say, even though there's now a Windows version, and even an unofficial trial on Linux, Scrivener strikes me as so good it's worth buying a Mac just to be able to use it.
It does all of what you do in LibO (or OOo, if you like), with the difference that you can have other documents than your chapters in the same place. With LibO you have your master document and that contains all your chapters. With Scrivener you have that in one section of your window and in another you have, for example, in my case, a text file containing the letters A-Z in a column down the left hand side, and to the right the names of each character whose first name begins with that letter (plus their relationship to the story). I also have a link to a Calc file with my timeline, which in the current book shows the ages of the principal characters at different events, and in the same Calc file principal facts about important characters, including their BMI! There is another document, available at a click when I'm in the middle of a chapter, with bus timetables, one with location details, my synopsis, character prehistories and most important, one for notes on changes I need to make later because I've changed something in a later chapter which affects an earlier chapter.
One click and I'm in the working paper, another click and I'm back in my chapter at exactly the point where I left it.
Like LibO, Scrivener will produce an acceptable first try for an epub book, and a good shot at the document you would send to your agent/publisher, or export to LibO for tidying up before you send it away.
But if you use a version handling program, you may well have found a good way to have all these working papers a click away anyway.
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