[Lucid] LyX install non-functional: LaTeX error claimed when starting new file

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh]

Binary package hint: lyx

I have installed a fresh version of Lucid Lynx. 10.04.

I installed lyx with apt-get install lyx

I run lyx and then press ctrl-n to create a new file (or, equivalently, I load up an existing lyx file).

I get the following error:

"
LyX: Document class not available

The layout file requested by this document,
article.layout,
is not usable. This is probably because a LaTeX
class or style file required by it is not
available. See the Customization documentation
for more information.
LyX will not be able to produce output.
"

which is obviously rather problematic for any useful operation of LyX...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: lyx 1.6.5-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat May 1 09:39:12 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: lyx

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh (cpbl)]

After either updates or, more likely?, further installations of related software that is not in LyX's dependency tree, this problem has gone away for me, already.
Hopefully someone else will confirm it and shed more light, or else we can mark it as invalid after a while.

[Zrubecz Laszlo (zrubi)]

I can confirm, if you install lyx after a fresh installation of Lucid Lynx. 10.04. Lyx is not working. If I try to see the LaTex Information dialog it's all empty.

If I try to start lyx from the command line it's not even start:

zrubi@Nefarian:~$ lyx
LyX: reconfiguring user directory
checking for a Latex2e program...
+checking for "latex"... yes
checking for a DVI postprocessing program...
+checking for "pplatex"... yes
checking for pLaTeX, the Japanese LaTeX...
+checking for "platex"... no

and hanging here forewer - or at least until I hit 'Crtl +C'

[Zrubecz Laszlo (zrubi)]

actually the full output, when I hit Crtl+C:

zrubi@Nefarian:~$ lyx
LyX: reconfiguring user directory
checking for a Latex2e program...
+checking for "latex"... yes
checking for a DVI postprocessing program...
+checking for "pplatex"... yes
checking for pLaTeX, the Japanese LaTeX...
+checking for "platex"... no
^CTraceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/lyx/configure.py", line 966, in <module>
    LATEX = checkLatex(dtl_tools)
  File "/usr/share/lyx/configure.py", line 240, in checkLatex
    if cmdOutput(LATEX + ' chklatex.ltx').find('ThisIsLaTeX2e') != -1:
  File "/usr/share/lyx/configure.py", line 66, in cmdOutput
    output = fout.read()
KeyboardInterrupt
^CLyX: Done!
LayoutFileList::Read: unable to find textclass file `'. Exiting.

Unfortunately I can't figured out what is the problem behind this :(

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh (cpbl)]

Well here are some of the other packages I installed afterwards... maybe you could try installing (the ones you want) them one by one and see which one, if any, fixes your problem??

 auctex ubuntu-restricted-extras tth latex2html latex-xft-fonts chktex dvipost

c

[Zrubecz Laszlo (zrubi)]

* auctex depends on emacs, what I really don't want...
* ubuntu-restricted-extras is about multimedia codecs nothing to do with latex or lyx.

The other packages are already installed on my system, tried to remove and reinstall them, but the problem still exist :(

[Christopher Barrington-Leigh (cpbl)]

Weird. I have all the standard (optional in Ubuntu's own repository GUI) repositories turned on. Do you? Are you updated? Reinstall LyX?
Ah, I remember now that I deleted (moved) my old .lyx folder at one point. That might be it?

[Zrubecz Laszlo (zrubi)]

well, I'm tried a lot of things, including:
- reinstall the base latex packages - but the latex is working anyway from the command line...
- reinstall lyx
- remove .lyx folder

And yes, I'm using the standard default ubuntu repositories only.

The real problem is that lyx is not starting properly at all if I run it from the command line. More exactly lyx cant see the latex class, styles, and so...

[Shawn Willden (shawn-ubuntu-willden)]

I went through all of the suggestions mentioned, and then ultimately found that the problem was that LaTeX wasn't working because something was screwy in the ~/.texmf-var directory. I moved that directory out of the way and LaTeX and LyX both started working correctly.

[Steven Bell (botsnlinux)]

I had the same problem after reinstalling a clean version of Ubuntu 10.04 and copying my home directory over. All I had to do was run LyX and then select Tools > Reconfigure.

[mi tech (william-buller)]

I run 10.04 and wanted to try LyX. Most of the templates did not work as described above. Similar to post #9, I blew away the folder ~/.lyx and then reloaded the application and the templates in /usr/share/lyx/templates/ work now. The ~/.lyx contained an empty folder named templates, which may have been causing the problem.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for lyx (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]