Installation of Ncurses from the Linux from Scratch by OnWorks

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6.24.1. Installation of Ncurses

Don't install a static library that is not handled by configure:

sed -i '/LIBTOOL_INSTALL/d' c++/Makefile.in

Prepare Ncurses for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr \

--mandir=/usr/share/man \

--with-shared \

--without-debug \

--without-normal \

--enable-pc-files \

--enable-widec

./configure --prefix=/usr \

--mandir=/usr/share/man \

--with-shared \

--without-debug \

--without-normal \

--enable-pc-files \

--enable-widec

The meaning of the new configure options:

--enable-widec

This switch causes wide-character libraries (e.g., libncursesw.so.6.1) to be built instead of normal ones (e.g., libncurses.so.6.1). These wide-character libraries are usable in both multibyte and traditional 8-bit locales, while normal libraries work properly only in 8-bit locales. Wide-character and normal libraries are source- compatible, but not binary-compatible.

--enable-pc-files

This switch generates and installs .pc files for pkg-config.

--without-normal

This switch disables building and installing most static libraries.

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. Install the package:

make install

Move the shared libraries to the /lib directory, where they are expected to reside:

mv -v /usr/lib/libncursesw.so.6* /lib

Because the libraries have been moved, one symlink points to a non-existent file. Recreate it:

ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libncursesw.so) /usr/lib/libncursesw.so

>

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 and linker scripts:

for lib in ncurses form panel rm -vf

echo "INPUT(-l${lib}w)" ln -sfv ${lib}w.pc

done

menu ; do

/usr/lib/lib${lib}.so

/usr/lib/pkgconfig/${lib}.pc

for lib in ncurses form panel rm -vf

echo "INPUT(-l${lib}w)" ln -sfv ${lib}w.pc

done

Finally, make sure that old applications that look for -lcurses at build time are still buildable:

rm -vf /usr/lib/libcursesw.so echo "INPUT(-lncursesw)" > /usr/lib/libcursesw.so ln -sfv libncurses.so /usr/lib/libcurses.so

If desired, install the Ncurses documentation:

mkdir -v

/usr/share/doc/ncurses-6.1

mkdir -v

cp -v -R doc/* /usr/share/doc/ncurses-6.1

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:

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 \

--without-debug \

--without-cxx-binding \

--with-abi-version=5 make sources libs

cp -av lib/lib*.so.5* /usr/lib

make distclean

./configure --prefix=/usr \

--with-shared \

--without-normal \