-
- The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at:
- [1]ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/ncurses. and
- [2]ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/zm/zmbenhal/ncurses. It is also carried on
- the GNU distribution site at [3]ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu.
-
- Features of ncurses
-
- The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 curses:
-
- * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are
+
+ The ncurses distribution is available via anonymous FTP at the GNU
+ distribution site [1]ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/ .
+ It is also available at [2]ftp://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ .
+
+ Release Notes
+
+ This release is designed to be upward compatible from ncurses 5.0
+ through 5.8; very few applications will require recompilation,
+ depending on the platform. These are the highlights from the
+ change-log since ncurses 5.8 release.
+
+ This is a bug-fix release, correcting a small number of urgent
+ problems in the ncurses library from the 5.8 release.
+
+ It also improves the Ada95 binding:
+ * fixes a longstanding portability problem with its use of the
+ [3]set_field_type function. Because that function uses
+ variable-length argument lists, its interface with gnat does not
+ work with certain platforms.
+ * improves configurability and portability, particularly when built
+ separately from the main ncurses tree. The 5.8 release introduced
+ scripts which can be used to construct separate tarballs for the
+ Ada95 and ncurses examples.
+ Those were a proof of concept. For the 5.9 release, those scripts
+ are augmented with rpm- and dpkg-scripts used in test builds
+ against a variety of gnat- and system ncurses versions as old as
+ gnat 3.15 and ncurses 5.4 (see snapshots and systems tested
+ [4]here.
+ * additional improvements were made for portability of the ncurses
+ examples, adding rpm- and dpkg-scripts for test-builds. See
+ [5]this page for snapshots and other information.
+
+ Features of Ncurses
+
+ The ncurses package is fully compatible with SVr4 (System V Release 4)
+ curses:
+ * All 257 of the SVr4 calls have been implemented (and are