ncurses package lacks libtinfo and libtic

[roarde]

GHC needs libtinfo for sure; no idea what needs libtic. The documentation for GHC has Fedora, Deb, and Ubuntu install "ncurses-devel" as a dependancy.

I copied our current ncurses/src to a local directory. Added the configure flags '--with-ticlib' and '--with-termlib' and bumped BUILDNUM to 2. Ran ncurses.SlackBuild and installed the resulting package. So far it runs without problems, and GHC's 'unknown-linux-7.10.2( . . .)deb7.txz' package configures successfully and installs to the target directory I specified. This would give us a GHC to compile our own GHC with.

The problem I had with the locally-built ncurses package was that it couldn't be successfully reverted to build 1. Package tools stopped working, complaining of missing libtinfo.so.5. Since terminal-specific routines no longer worked, a new login or su wasn't possible. Had to boot the installer, mount the installation, open the tarball there and run the resulting install/doinst.sh.

I think changing the ncurses package is still a good idea. It fits in with our practice of shipping what other distros call a "-dev" package with the main package. Due to the importance of ncurses, I offer this as an issue to be reviewed, rather than as a pull request which might be implemented without as much review.

[roarde]

FWIW, I recommend staying at ncurses 5.9 for 7.1 and starting 7.2 with 6.0 (or maybe a later version if a new one becomes stable and available).

[roarde]

Obviously, this is easier to evaluate with a working package. Ncurses 5.9 build 2 is now in untested.

[roarde]

Reverted ncurses back to build 1.

The symbols are in libncurses* and will be found by properly built packages. If use of alien binaries requires a named libtinfo, it should be handled on a per-case basis within that package or SlackBuild.

Closing this issue.

[roarde]

The symbols are in libncurses*. Only alien binaries need libtinfo and should be provided for seperately.