BibTeX, biblatex and biber ⇒ biblatex | Problems in LyX on Ubuntu

[Luis Cobo]

I'm try to use biblatex in lyx.
Everything goes right when I use it on Windows.
But I have a problem when I try to compile just the same file on an Ubuntu os.
Of course I changed the path in the \bibliography command, but it doesn't work anyway.
I've successfully try to export the file to .tex and compile it.

The questions are:

1. Why a path like /home/USER/tesis/mybibfile does not work?
2. Which directory is right for mybibfile.bib to be in order to let lyx to find it when compiling my lyx file?

¿Any suggestion?

Thanks.

[meho_r]

Can you post an example .lyx file together with a .bib file, for testing purposes (put them in a ZIP archive before attaching)?

Usually, LyX will find the file wherever you put it, if the path is absolute (not relative) and, of course, correct.

[Luis Cobo]

Ok, there you are.

Thanks

[meho_r]

OK, couple of things:

1. In your .bib file authors named "---" crash biber. So, either rename them, or add another set of curly braces. So, instead of {---} write {{---}}.
2. Correct the reference in the first footnote, capital first letter.
3. If after all this you still don't get references right, save the document, close LyX and open it again. This time it should work.

BTW, exported document to plain LaTeX compiles perfectly after step 1 is done. LyX can be... complicated sometimes.

[Luis Cobo]

OK Meho_r, thanks a lot.

I did everything you said, but it didn't work anyway. I had suposed that it had no relation with the files, because biblatex had worked with this and other files in my windows machines (WXP & W7), but not in my Ubuntu one.

In Ubuntu I have not biber installed, and I was trying to compile with bibtex or bibtex8 (I've succesfully do it in windows): new failure.

So, I suppose there is something wrong in the system with Texlive or Lyx or both.

[meho_r]

Possibly. On Windows, do you use TeXLive or MikTeX? Also, if you used newer packages on one OS which aren't available on the other, that might be a problem (a tip: bundledoc for portability).

FYI, I tested your example on Debian GNU/Linux, with TeXLive 2010 (latest updates; installed from DVD, not from repos).

[localghost]

[…] In Ubuntu I have not biber installed, and I was trying to compile with bibtex or bibtex8 (I've succesfully do it in windows): new failure. […]

Get Biber from its homepage, unpack the archive and copy the binary file into ~/bin [1]. This way you can use Biber on Ubuntu and see if this fixes the problem.

[1] Biber: BibTeX replacement for biblatex


Thorsten

[Luis Cobo]

Thanks.

In windows I use MikTeX.

[Luis Cobo]

Ok, thanks, Meho_r & Thorsten.
I updated my Ubuntu to the newest version and reinstalled the full texlive (2009) and lyx (2.0) again. Even I created a new user in order to avoid old configuration files.
Everyting worked all right.