LibreOffice 5.1.4. cannot find firebird sdbc connection

Trying to connect LibreOffice Base natively to database Firebird through an sdbc connection. Although I installed the Rirebird SDBC driver for LibreOffice (libreoffice-sdbc-firebird), I could not find a way.

Configuration: OS: Linux Mint 18. / LibreOffice 5.1.4.2 (Build ID: 1:5.1.4-0ubuntu1). / Firebird 3.0. / Installed libreoffice-sdbc-firebird version (1:)5.1.4(-0ubuntu1).

How I tried to connect: Start LibreOffice Base | Opens on page Database Wizard | 1. Select Database | Check: Connect to an Existing Database, Dropdown: No entry for Firebird. The SDBC driver also does not show up in LibreOffice | Menu | Tools | Options | LibreOffice Base | Connections in the Window “Drivers known in LibreOffice”.

Is there another way (workaround?) to connect to an external (meaning: not embedded in a Base file) Firebird database natively?

(I did connect via JDBC and it works, but it was tedious to set up and I would like to find a faster way.)

To activate Firebird drivers is needed to activate experimental features:

Menu/Tools/Options/LibreOffice/Advance - Optional (Unstable) Options - Enable experimental features.

but they are on development currently, Bug 51780 - default to Firebird not HSQLDB in Base.

On the firebird web page there are free drivers to connect Firebird connectivity

Thank you, m.a.riosv.! But I do and did have experimental features checked when I tried the above sdbc connection. This alone does not change the inability to connect natively to firebird.

I found a native sdbc connection in LibreOffice 6:

a) To implement: On the page Database Wizard of LibreOffice Base go to “Connect to an existing database” and choose “Firebird File”. If you cannot find this option, please read the next paragraph.

b) Prerequite: In Linux you need the library “libreoffice-sdbc-firebird” (Firebird SDBC driver for LibreOffice). I do not remember if this came installed by default or I had to get it independently. I do not know what you need in Windows and if it is installed automatically.

Evaluation: Plus - Much handier than the previous Java-Connection! Minus (at least for a German) - As far as I could see, it cannot translate the German Umlauts, which are ASCII in the database, into the needed UTF-8 characters of my computer user interface. My guess: This problem may not occur if you configured the database character set to be UTF-8.