8.31.1. Installation of Ncurses
Prepare Ncurses for compilation:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--mandir=/usr/share/man \
--with-shared \
--without-debug \
--without-normal \
--with-cxx-shared \
--enable-pc-files \
--with-pkg-config-libdir=/usr/lib/pkgconfig
The meaning of the new configure options:
-
--with-shared
-
This makes Ncurses build and install shared C libraries.
-
--without-normal
-
This prevents Ncurses building and installing static C
libraries.
-
--without-debug
-
This prevents Ncurses building and installing debug
libraries.
-
--with-cxx-shared
-
This makes Ncurses build and install shared C++ bindings. It
also prevents it building and installing static C++ bindings.
-
--enable-pc-files
-
This switch generates and installs .pc files for pkg-config.
Compile the package:
make
This package has a test suite, but it can only be run after the
package has been installed. The tests reside in the test/ directory. See the README file in that directory for further
details.
The installation of this package will overwrite libncursesw.so.6.5 in-place. It may crash the
shell process which is using code and data from the library file.
Install the package with DESTDIR, and
replace the library file correctly using install command (the header
curses.h is also edited to ensure the
wide-character ABI to be used as what we've done in Section 6.3, “Ncurses-6.5”):
make DESTDIR=$PWD/dest install
install -vm755 dest/usr/lib/libncursesw.so.6.5 /usr/lib
rm -v dest/usr/lib/libncursesw.so.6.5
sed -e 's/^#if.*XOPEN.*$/#if 1/' \
-i dest/usr/include/curses.h
cp -av dest/* /
Many applications still expect the linker to be able to find
non-wide-character Ncurses libraries. Trick such applications into
linking with wide-character libraries by means of symlinks (note
that the .so links are only safe with
curses.h edited to always use the
wide-character ABI):
for lib in ncurses form panel menu ; do
ln -sfv lib${lib}w.so /usr/lib/lib${lib}.so
ln -sfv ${lib}w.pc /usr/lib/pkgconfig/${lib}.pc
done
Finally, make sure that old applications that look for -lcurses at build time are still buildable:
ln -sfv libncursesw.so /usr/lib/libcurses.so
If desired, install the Ncurses documentation:
cp -v -R doc -T /usr/share/doc/ncurses-6.5
![[Note]](../images/note.png)
Note
The instructions above don't create non-wide-character Ncurses
libraries since no package installed by compiling from sources
would link against them at runtime. However, the only known
binary-only applications that link against non-wide-character
Ncurses libraries require version 5. If you must have such
libraries because of some binary-only application or to be
compliant with LSB, build the package again with the following
commands:
make distclean
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--with-shared \
--without-normal \
--with-cxx-shared \
--without-debug \
--without-cxx-binding \
--with-abi-version=5
make sources libs
cp -av lib/lib*.so.5* /usr/lib
8.31.2. Building Ncurses - 32bit
Clean previous build:
make distclean
Prepare Ncurses for compilation:
CC="gcc -m32" CXX="g++ -m32" \
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--host=i686-pc-linux-gnu \
--libdir=/usr/lib32 \
--mandir=/usr/share/man \
--with-shared \
--without-debug \
--without-normal \
--with-cxx-shared \
--enable-pc-files \
--with-pkg-config-libdir=/usr/lib32/pkgconfig
Compile the package:
make
Install the package:
make DESTDIR=$PWD/DESTDIR install
mkdir -p DESTDIR/usr/lib32/pkgconfig
for lib in ncurses form panel menu ; do
rm -vf DESTDIR/usr/lib32/lib${lib}.so
echo "INPUT(-l${lib}w)" > DESTDIR/usr/lib32/lib${lib}.so
ln -svf ${lib}w.pc DESTDIR/usr/lib32/pkgconfig/$lib.pc
done
rm -vf DESTDIR/usr/lib32/libcursesw.so
echo "INPUT(-lncursesw)" > DESTDIR/usr/lib32/libcursesw.so
ln -sfv libncurses.so DESTDIR/usr/lib32/libcurses.so
cp -Rv DESTDIR/usr/lib32/* /usr/lib32
rm -rf DESTDIR