6.3. ncurses 6.6-20260418

Licenses:

• X11-style (ncurses)

Dependencies:

• musl (libc)
• libcxx (c++ library, for the C++ bindings)

ncurses is a terminal handling library and terminfo toolkit. we need it to provide curses interfaces and terminal capability data for later userspace packages in this book.

Extract and Enter the Source Tree

cd "$LBI_SOURCES"
tar -xf ncurses-6.6-20260418.tgz
cd ncurses-6.6-20260418

Build Host tic

mkdir -pv build
pushd build
  ../configure --prefix="$LBI_ROOT/system/tools" AWK=gawk
  make -C include
  make -C progs tic
  install -vm755 progs/tic "$LBI_ROOT/system/tools/bin/tic"
popd

Configure, Build, and Install ncurses

Use lbi_configure for the target configure phase instead of a manual full-path ./configure invocation.

lbi_configure \
    --host="$LBI_TARGET" \
    --build="$(./config.guess)" \
    --with-manpage-format=normal \
    --with-shared \
    --without-normal \
    --with-cxx-shared \
    --without-debug \
    --without-ada \
    --disable-stripping \
    AWK=gawk

make $LWI_MAKE_FLAGS
make DESTDIR="$LBI_ROOT" TIC_PATH="$PWD/build/progs/tic" install

Post-install Compatibility Adjustments

ln -sv libncursesw.so "$LBI_ROOT/system/libraries/libncurses.so"
sed -e 's/^#if.*XOPEN.*$/#if 1/' \
    -i "$LBI_ROOT/system/headers/curses.h"

Command Explanations

• mkdir -pv build: Creates a separate host-build directory for the tic program without mixing host objects into the target build tree.
• ../configure --prefix="$LBI_ROOT/system/tools" AWK=gawk: Configures the temporary host-side ncurses tools under the tools prefix and selects the host gawk for generated source steps.
• make -C include: Builds the generated ncurses headers needed before compiling tic.
• make -C progs tic: Builds only the host-runnable terminfo compiler instead of building the full host ncurses package.
• install -vm755 progs/tic "$LBI_ROOT/system/tools/bin/tic": Places the host tic where the later target install step can reference it explicitly.
• lbi_configure: Uses the book's configure helper so ncurses installs into /system layout paths instead of upstream defaults.
• --host="$LBI_TARGET" and --build="$(./config.guess)": Tell configure this is a cross build from the current host into the target triple.
• --with-manpage-format=normal: Installs normal man pages instead of compressed or alternate-format pages.
• --with-shared and --without-normal: Builds shared ncurses libraries and skips static normal libraries for this pass.
• --with-cxx-shared: Builds the C++ ncurses binding as a shared library.
• --without-debug and --without-ada: Skips debug libraries and Ada bindings that are not needed in the minimal target.
• --disable-stripping: Keeps binaries unstripped so symbol removal can remain a deliberate later policy choice.
• AWK=gawk: Uses GNU awk for ncurses' generated source rules.
• make DESTDIR="$LBI_ROOT" TIC_PATH="$PWD/build/progs/tic" install: Installs into the target tree while forcing the install rule to use the host-built tic.
• ln -sv libncursesw.so "$LBI_ROOT/system/libraries/libncurses.so": Provides the conventional libncurses.so name as an alias for the wide-character ncurses library.
• sed -e 's/^#if.*XOPEN.*$/#if 1/' ... curses.h: Makes the installed header expose X/Open declarations expected by later packages.