ncurses 5.0

[ncurses.git] / INSTALL

-- $Id: INSTALL,v 1.33 1999/09/18 23:04:36 tom Exp $
---------------------------------------------------------------------
             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, where
d.d is the current version number.  There should be several subdirectories,
including `c++', `form', `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 section titled IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR
below.

If you are converting from BSD curses and do not have root access, be sure
to read the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below.

If you are using a version of XFree86 xterm older than 3.1.2F, see the section
on RECENT XTERM VERSIONS below.

If you are trying to build GNU Emacs using ncurses for terminal support,
read the USING NCURSES WITH EMACS section below.

If you are trying to build applications using gpm with ncurses,
read the USING NCURSES WITH GPM section below.

If you are trying to build Elvis using ncurses for terminal support,
read the USING NCURSES WITH ELVIS section below.

If you are running over the Andrew File System see the note below on
USING NCURSES WITH AFS.

If you want to build the Ada95 binding, go to the Ada95 directory and
follow the instructions there.  The Ada95 binding is not covered below.

If you are using anything but (a) Linux, or (b) one of the 4.4BSD-based
i386 Unixes, go read the Portability section in the TO-DO file before you
do anything else.

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)

Ncurses has been also built in the OS/2 EMX environment.

INSTALLATION PROCEDURE:

1.  First, decide whether you want ncurses to replace your existing library (in
    which case you'll need super-user privileges) or be installed in parallel
    with it.

    The --prefix option to configure changes the root directory for installing
    ncurses.  The default is in subdirectories of /usr/local.  Use
    --prefix=/usr to replace your default curses distribution.  This is the
    default for Linux and BSD/OS users.

    The package gets installed beneath the --prefix directory as follows:

    In $(prefix)/bin:          tic, infocmp, captoinfo, tset,
                                reset, clear, tput, toe
    In $(prefix)/lib:          libncurses*.* libcurses.a
    In $(prefix)/share/terminfo: compiled terminal descriptions
    In $(prefix)/include:      C header files
    Under $(prefix)/man:       the manual pages

    Note however that the configure script attempts to locate previous
    installation of ncurses, and will set the default prefix according to where
    it finds the ncurses headers.

2.  Type `./configure' in the top-level directory of the distribution to
    configure ncurses for your operating system and create the Makefiles.
    Besides --prefix, various configuration options are available to customize
    the installation; use `./configure --help' to list the available options.

    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)

        libcurses.a (normal, a link to libncurses.a)
                This gets left out if you configure with --disable-overwrite.

        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.  Typing `configure' with no arguments is equivalent to:

        ./configure --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite

    Typing

        ./configure --with-shared

    makes the shared libraries the default, resulting in

        ./configure --with-shared --with-normal --with-debug --enable-overwrite

    If you want only shared libraries, type

        ./configure --with-shared --without-normal --without-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.

    You can make curses and terminfo fall back to an existing file of termcap
    definitions by configuring with --enable-termcap.  If you do this, the
    library will search /etc/termcap before the terminfo database, and will
    also interpret the contents of the TERM environment variable.  See the
    section BSD CONVERSION NOTES below.

3.  Type `make'.  Ignore any warnings, no error messages should be produced.
    This should compile the ncurses library, the terminfo compiler tic(1),
    captoinfo(1), infocmp(1), toe(1), clear(1) tset(1), reset(1), and tput(1)
    programs (see the man pages for explanation of what they do), some test
    programs, and the panels, menus, and forms libraries.

4.  Run ncurses and several other test programs in the test directory to
    verify that ncurses functions correctly before doing an install that
    may overwrite system files.  Read the file test/README for details on
    the test programs.
    
    NOTE: You must have installed the terminfo database, or set the
    environment variable $TERMINFO to point to a SVr4-compatible terminfo
    database before running the test programs.  Not all vendors' terminfo
    databases are SVr4-compatible, but most seem to be.  Exceptions include
    DEC's Digital Unix (formerly known as OSF/1).

    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.

5.  Once you've tested, you can type `make install' to install 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, etc...
        'make install.includes' installs the headers.
        'make install.libs'     installs the libraries (and the headers).
        '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.

  ############################################################################
  #     CAVEAT EMPTOR: `install.data' run as root 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.    #
  ############################################################################

    The terminfo(5) manual page wants to be preprocessed with tbl(1) before
    being formatted by nroff(1).  Modern man(1) implementations tend to do
    this by default, but you may want to look at your version's man page
    to be sure.

    If the system already has a curses library that you need to keep using
    for some bizarre binary-compatibility reason, you'll need to distinguish
    between it and ncurses. If ncurses is installed outside the standard
    directories (/usr/include and /usr/lib) then all your users will need
    to use the -I option to compile programs and -L to 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.

    IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ROOT: Change directory to the `progs' subdirectory
    and run the `capconvert' script.  This script will deduce various things
    about your environment and use them to build you a private terminfo tree,
    so you can use ncurses applications.

    If more than one user at your site does this, the space for the duplicate
    trees is wasted.  Try to get your site administrators to install a system-
    wide terminfo tree instead.

    See the BSD CONVERSION NOTES section below for a few more details.

6.  The c++ directory has C++ classes that are built on top of ncurses and
    panels.  You must have c++ (and its libraries) installed before you can
    compile and run the demo.

    Use --without-cxx-binding to tell configure to not build the C++ bindings
    and demo.

    If you do not have C++, you must use the --without-cxx option to tell
    the configure script to not attempt to determine the type of 'bool'
    which may be supported by C++.  IF YOU USE THIS OPTION, BE ADVISED THAT
    YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO COMPILE (OR RUN) NCURSES APPLICATIONS WITH C++.
    
7.  If you're running an older 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'.  All 1.3 and many 1.2 distributions (including Yggdrasil and
    Red Hat) already have the console type set to `linux'.

    The way to change the wired-in console type depends on the configuration
    of your system. This may involve editing /etc/inittab, /etc/ttytype,
    /etc/profile and other such files.

    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. There is no need to have entries for all
    possible screen sizes, ncurses will figure out the size automatically.

IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM INTEGRATOR:

    Beginning with 1.9.9, the ncurses distribution includes both a tset
    utility and /usr/share/tabset directory.  If you are installing ncurses,
    it is no longer either necessary or desirable to install tset-jv.

    Configuration and Installation:

        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/share/terminfo; you may want to override this with
        --datadir=/usr/share/misc; terminfo and tabset are installed under the
        data directory.

        Please configure the ncurses library in a pure-terminfo mode; that
        is, with the --disable-termcap option.   This will make the ncurses
        library smaller and faster. The ncurses library includes a termcap
        emulation that queries the terminfo database, so even applications
        that use raw termcap to query terminal characteristics will win
        (providing you recompile and relink them!).

        If you must configure with termcap fallback enabled, you may also
        wish to use the --enable-getcap option.  This option speeds up
        termcap-based startups, at the expense of not allowing personal
        termcap entries to reference the terminfo tree.  See the code in
        ncurses/tinfo/read_termcap.c for details.

        Note that if you have $TERMCAP set, ncurses will use that value
        to locate termcap data.  In particular, running from xterm will
        set $TERMCAP to the contents of the xterm's termcap entry.
        If ncurses sees that, it will not examine /etc/termcap.

    Keyboard Mapping:

        The terminfo file assumes that Shift-Tab generates \E[Z (the ECMA-48
        reverse-tabulation sequence) rather than ^I.  Here are the loadkeys -d
        mappings that will set this up:

                keycode  15 = Tab             Tab
                        alt     keycode  15 = Meta_Tab
                        shift   keycode  15 = F26
                string F26 ="\033[Z"

    Naming the Console Terminal

        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 and set that up
        in the /etc/inittab table or local equivalent.  Send the entry to the
        terminfo maintainer (listed in the misc/terminfo file) to be included
        in the terminfo file, if it's not already there.  See the
        term(7) manual page included with this distribution for more on
        conventions for choosing type names.

        Here are some recommended primary console names:

                linux   -- Linux console driver
                freebsd -- FreeBSD
                netbsd  -- NetBSD
                bsdos   -- BSD/OS

        If you are responsible for integrating ncurses for one of these
        distribution, please either use the recommended name or get back
        to us explaining why you don't want to, so we can work out nomenclature
        that will make users' lives easier rather than harder.

RECENT XTERM VERSIONS
        The terminfo database file included with this distribution assumes you
        are running an XFree86 xterm based on X11R6 (i.e., xterm-r6).  The
        earlier X11R5 entry (xterm-r5) is provided as well.

        If you are running XFree86 version 3.2 (actually 3.1.2F and up), you
        should consider using the xterm-xf86-v32 (or later, the most recent
        version is always named "xterm-xfree86") entry, which adds ANSI color
        and the VT220 capabilities which have been added in XFree86.  If you
        are running a mixed network, however, where this terminal description
        may be used on an older xterm, you may have problems, since
        applications that assume these capabilities will produce incorrect
        output on the older xterm (e.g., highlighting is not cleared).

CONFIGURING FALLBACK ENTRIES
        In order to support operation of ncurses programs before the terminfo
        tree is accessible (that is, in single-user mode or at OS installation
        time) the ncurses library can be compiled to include an array of
        pre-fetched fallback entries.

        These entries are checked by setupterm() only when the conventional
        fetches from the terminfo tree and the termcap fallback (if configured)
        have been tried and failed.  Thus, the presence of a fallback will not
        shadow modifications to the on-disk entry for the same type, when that
        entry is accessible.

        By default, there are no entries on the fallback list.  After you
        have built the ncurses suite for the first time, you can change
        the list (the process needs infocmp(1)).  To do so, use the script
        MKfallback.sh.  A configure script option --with-fallbacks does this
        (it accepts a comma-separated list of the names you wish, and does
        not require a rebuild).

        If you wanted (say) to have linux, vt100, and xterm fallbacks, you
        would use the commands

                cd ncurses;
                MKfallback.sh linux vt100 xterm >fallback.c

        Then just rebuild and reinstall the library as you would normally.
        You can restore the default empty fallback list with

                MKfallback.sh >fallback.c

        The overhead for an empty fallback list is one trivial stub function.
        Any non-empty fallback list is const-ed and therefore lives in sharable
        text space.  You can look at the comment trailing each initializer in
        the generated ncurses/fallback.c file to see the core cost of the
        fallbacks.  A good rule of thumb for modern vt100-like entries is that
        each one will cost about 2.5K of text space.

BSD CONVERSION NOTES:
        If you need to support really ancient BSD programs, you probably
        want to configure with the --enable-bsdpad option.  What this does
        is enable code in tputs() that recognizes a numeric prefix on a
        capability as a request for that much trailing padding in milliseconds.
        There are old BSD programs that do things like tputs("50").

        (If you are distributing ncurses as a support-library component of
        an application you probably want to put the remainder of this section
        in the package README file.)

        The following note applies only if you have configured ncurses with
        --enable-termcap.

------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------

If you are installing this application privately (either because you
have no root access or want to experiment with it before doing a root
installation), there are a couple of details you need to be aware of.
They have to do with the ncurses library, which uses terminfo rather
than termcap for describing terminal characteristics.

Though the ncurses library is terminfo-based, it will interpret your
TERMCAP variable (if present), any local termcap files you reference
through it, and the system termcap file.  However, in order to avoid
slowing down your application startup, it will only do this once per
terminal type!

The first time you load a given terminal type from your termcap
database, the library initialization code will automatically write it
in terminfo format to a subdirectory under $HOME/.terminfo.  After
that, the initialization code will find it there and do a (much
faster) terminfo fetch.

Usually, all this means is that your home directory will silently grow
an invisible .terminfo subdirectory which will get filled in with
terminfo descriptions of terminal types as you invoke them.  If anyone
ever installs a global terminfo tree on your system, this will quietly
stop happening and your $HOME/.terminfo will become redundant.

The objective of all this logic is to make converting from BSD termcap
as painless as possible without slowing down your application (termcap
compilation is expensive).

If you don't have a TERMCAP variable or custom personal termcap file,
you can skip the rest of this dissertation.

If you *do* have a TERMCAP variable and/or a custom personal termcap file
that defines a terminal type, that definition will stop being visible
to this application after the first time you run it, because it will
instead see the terminfo entry that it wrote to $HOME/terminfo the
first time around.

Subsequently, editing the TERMCAP variable or personal TERMCAP file
will have no effect unless you explicitly remove the terminfo entry
under $HOME/terminfo.  If you do that, the entry will be recompiled
from your termcap resources the next time it is invoked.

To avoid these complications, use infocmp(1) and tic(1) to edit the
terminfo directory directly.

------------------------------- CUT HERE --------------------------------

USING NCURSES WITH AFS:
        AFS treats each directory as a separate logical filesystem, you
        can't hard-link across them.  The --enable-symlinks option copes
        with this by making tic use symbolic links.

USING NCURSES WITH EMACS:
        GNU Emacs has its own termcap support.  By default, it uses a mixture
        of those functions and code linked from the host system's libraries.
        You need to foil this and shut out the GNU termcap library entirely.

        In order to do this, hack the Linux config file (s/linux.h) to contain
        a #define TERMINFO and set the symbol LIBS_TERMCAP to "-lncurses".

        We have submitted such a change for the 19.30 release, so it may
        already be applied in your sources -- check for the #define TERMINFO.

USING NCURSES WITH GPM:
        Ncurses 4.1 and up can be configured to use GPM (General Purpose Mouse)
        which is used on Linux console.  Be aware that GPM is commonly
        installed as a shared library which contains a wrapper for the curses
        wgetch() function (libcurses.o).  Some integrators have simplified
        linking applications by combining all of libcurses.so (the BSD curses)
        into the libgpm.so file, producing symbol conflicts with ncurses.  You
        may be able to work around this problem by linking as follows:

                cc -o foo foo.o -lncurses -lgpm -lncurses

        but the linker may not cooperate, producing mysterious errors.
        A patched version of gpm is available:

                ftp.clark.net:/pub/dickey/ncurses/gpm-1.10-970125.tgz

        This patch is incorporated in gpm 1.12; however some integrators
        are slow to update this library.

USING NCURSES WITH ELVIS:
        To use ncurses as the screen-painting library for Elvis, apply the
        following patch to the Elvis curses

*** curses.c.orig       Sun Jun 26 05:48:23 1994
--- curses.c    Sun Feb 11 16:50:41 1996
***************
*** 986,992 ****
  {
        if (has_IM)
                do_IM();
!       do_IC();
        qaddch(ch);
        if (has_EI)
                do_EI();
--- 986,995 ----
  {
        if (has_IM)
                do_IM();
!#ifdef NCURSES_VERSION
!       else    /* ncurses does insertion in a slightly nonstandard way */
!#endif
!               do_IC();
        qaddch(ch);
        if (has_EI)
                do_EI();

This patch is for elvis-1.8pl4 but it can even be used for elvis-1.8pl3 with
an offset of -11 lines.

BUGS:
        Send any feedback to the ncurses mailing list at
        bug-ncurses@gnu.org. To subscribe send mail to 
        bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org with body that reads: 
        subscribe ncurses <your-email-address-here>

        The Hacker's Guide in the misc directory includes some guidelines
        on how to report bugs in ways that will get them fixed most quickly.