--------------------------------------------------------------------- How to install Ncurses/Terminfo on your system --------------------------------------------------------------------- ************************************************************ * READ ALL OF THIS FILE BEFORE YOU TRY TO INSTALL NCURSES. * ************************************************************ You should be reading the file INSTALL in a directory called ncurses-d.d.d, where d.d.d is the current version number. There should be several subdirectories, including 'c++', 'man', 'menu', 'misc', 'ncurses', 'panel', 'progs', and 'test'. See the README file for a roadmap to the package. If you are a Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD distribution integrator or packager, please read and act on the note addressed to you below. REQUIREMENTS: You will need the following in order to build and install ncurses under UNIX: * ANSI C compiler (gcc is recommended) * sh (bash will do) * awk (mawk or gawk will do) * sed * BSD or System V style install (a script is enclosed) INSTALLATION PROCEDURE: 1. Decide where you want to put the object files of terminal descriptions. The default is /usr/lib/terminfo. If your system already has a terminfo database, you can put it somewhere else. Keep in mind that this directory should probably be in your root filesystem so that programs which use terminfo can be used even when the system is only up single-user. The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing ncurses; the default is in subdirectories of /usr/, unless the configure script finds the 'tic' program installed in a different place within your path (e.g., finding /usr/bin/tic makes the default prefix /usr/bin): bin - tic, infocmp, clear, tput lib - libncurses*.* lib/terminfo - compiled terminal descriptions man - man pages include - C header files If you want to put the terminal descriptions in, for example, /usr/share/lib/terminfo, you can either make that a symbolic link to /usr/lib/terminfo, or type 'configure --datadir=/usr/share/lib/terminfo'. This is particularly useful if your system already has a terminfo database. This option allows you to place ncurses' terminfo in an alternate location. You can use TERMINFO to point to the appropriate directory. 2. Type 'configure' to configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles. You can optionally give configure options, such as '--prefix=/usr/local'. Use `configure --help' to list the available options. It will create your Makefiles. If your operating system is not supported, read the PORTABILITY section in the file ncurses/README for information on how to create a configuration file for your system. The 'configure' script generates makefile rules for one or more object models and their associated libraries: libncurses.a (normal) libncurses.so (shared) libncurses_g.a (debug) libncurses_p.a (profile) If you do not specify any models, the normal and debug libraries will be configured. This is equivalent to configure --with-normal --with-debug Rules for generating shared libraries are highly dependent upon the choice of host system and compiler. We've been testing shared libraries on linux and sunos with gcc, but more work needs to be done to make shared libraries work on other systems. If you have the capability to make a publicly accessible terminfo database, use the --disable-termcap switch. This removes the automatic fallback to the termcap file normally compiled in, making the curses library significantly smaller because the initialization code doesn't have to carry around the entire termcap-to-terminfo compiler. 3. Type 'make'. Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced. This should compile the library, the terminfo compiler (tic), the infocmp, clear and tput programs (see the man pages for explanation of what they do), some test programs, and the panels and menus libraries. Read the file test/README for details on the test programs. 4. Type 'make install' to install the libraries, the programs, the terminfo database and the man pages. Alternately, you can type 'make install' in each directory you want to install. In the top-level directory, you can do a partial install using these commands: 'make install.progs' installs tic, infocmp, clear and tput. 'make install.includes' installs the headers. 'make install.libs' installs the libraries. 'make install.data' installs the terminfo data. (Note: 'tic' must be installed before the terminfo data can be compiled). 'make install.man' installs the man pages. 5. Type 'make install.data' installs the terminfo database. You can skip this part if your system already has such a database. ############################################################################ # CAVEAT EMPTOR: 'install.data' will NUKE any existing # # terminfo database. If you have any custom or unusual entries SAVE them # # before you install ncurses. I have a file called terminfo.custom for # # this purpose. Don't forget to run tic on the file once you're done. # ############################################################################ Also note that 'tic misc/terminfo.src' uses large amounts of core. on machines with less than 16 megabytes of physical RAM and slow disks, paging overhead has been known to slow the running time from a few minutes to a couple of hours! We have attacked this problem by breaking the file in half, cutting each section's core requirements drastically (the cut point was chosen so there are no `use' references that cross the cut going forward). 7. The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and panels. You need to have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can compile and run the demo. 8. If you're running under Linux, you must either (a) tell Linux that the console terminal type is `linux', or (b) make a link to or copy of the linux entry in the appropriate place under your terminfo directory, named `console'. The way to change the wired-in console type is by editing /etc/inittab. Warning: this is not for the fainthearted, if you mess up your console getty entries you can make your system unusable! However, if you are a distribution maker, this is the right thing to do (see the note for integrators near the end of this file). The easier way is to link or copy l/linux to c/console under your terminfo directory. Note: this will go away next time you do `make install.data' and you'll have to redo it. 9. Run ncurses and several other test programs (see the test directory). The ncurses program is designed specifically to test the ncurses library. You can use it to verify that the screen highlights work correctly, that cursor addressing and window scrolling works OK, etc. NOTES: If you have SLS or anything based on it (slackware is OK) PLEASE remove everything related to ncurses before re-installing it. Since most systems already have a curses library, you'll need to distinguish between it and ncurses. If ncurses is installed outside the standard directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then you need to use the -I option when you compile programs and -L when you link them. If you have BSD curses installed in your system and you accidentally compile using its curses.h you'll end up with a large number of undefined symbols at link time. _waddbytes is one of them. The include files will normally be installed in /usr/include/ncurses. To arrange for your programs to see them by default, copy or link them to /usr/include from there. On many systems, the make production `install' will install ncurses over the system curses libraries. Don't do this casually! IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR: Configure with --prefix=/usr to make the install productions put libraries and headers in the correct locations (overwriting any previous curses libraries and headers). This will put the terminfo hierarchy under /usr/lib/terminfo; you may want to override this with --data-dir=/usr/share/misc/terminfo Please configure the ncurses library in a pure-terminfo mode; that is, with the --disable-termcap option. This will make the curses library smaller and faster. The ncurses library include a termcap emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications that use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win (providing you relink them!). In various Linuxes (and possibly elsewhere) there has been a practice of designating the system console driver type as `console'. Please do not do this any more! It complicates peoples' lives, because it can mean that several different terminfo entries from different operating systems all logically want to be called `console'. Please pick a name unique to your console driver (such as `linux' for the standard Linux driver or `ibmpc3' for the BSDI one) and set that up in the /etc/inittab table. Send the entry to the terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included in the master, if it's not already there. BUGS: Send any feedback to me: zmbenhal@netcom.com or to the ncurses mailing list at ncurses-list@netcom.com. To subscribe send mail to listserv@netcom.com with body that reads: subscribe ncurses-list