LyX spellchecker doesn't work in the Ubuntu repository version

[Micha H. Werner]

If I install LyX from the Ubuntu repo, I can only select enchant as a spellchecker, other options, including hunspell, are greyed despite the fact that they are installed properly. What is more, enchant does not seem to work. If I compile LyX from the sources, however, I can choose hunspell and everything works fine (with version 2.0.0 as well as 2.0.1). The problem applies to Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dominik (schmidt-dominik)]

same problem with 12.04 here.

[dreamon (dreamon)]

The latest version of LyX from the LyX Team PPA (ppa:lyx-devel/release) does not suffer from this problem. With version 2.0.3 from the PPA, users can set all directories (no grey boxes), and Hunspell, Enchant and Aspell can be selectes for spell-checking.
See https://launchpad.net/~lyx-devel/+archive/release

[linas (linasvepstas)]

I found the answer here: Yayyyy!

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1929675

I have now got the answer to this problem from the LinuxFormat Forum.

Check in the Software Centre to see if ENCHANT is installed. If not, install it. Then start Lyx,select TOOLS, PREFERENCES, LANGUAGE SETTINGS, SPELLCHECKER. Then at SPELLCHECKER ENGINE, select ENCHANT, press ENTER KEY, and click on SAVE.

You should now have a spell checker!

So this seems like a configuration bug: the above manual config step should have been automatic.

[linas (linasvepstas)]

FWIW, this seems like a serious bug, I struggled with this, and spent several sessions googling for the answer before stumbling upon it.

[Jean-Marc Lasgouttes (jmarc)]

This seems to indicate that the LyX package should require enchant. The support for it is new to 2.0.0.

I do not know actually what is the default ubuntu spellchecking tool. LyX probably supports it: enchant, hunspell and aspell are supported.

[Flemming Bjerke (flem)]

The problem with hunspell seems to persist in ubuntu 14.04 and lyx 2.0.8.1. I have installed enchant as well as hunspell, but I cannot insert the path to hunspell (field and button are grey). The only possible spellchecker is enchant. But, enchant seems to work after I sat language to Danish in document setting and general settings, and marked "spellchecking continously" as well. But, I had to run tools > reconfigure before it worked.