How to install libncurses.so.5 in Ubuntu 20.04?

Question

I need both 32 bit and 64 bit for libncurses.so.5 on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) for building an Android application on an older Android NDK. What are my options? libncurses.so.5 is not on apt-get anymore.

The i386 binary package is available - https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/libncurses5 https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/libncurses5-dev or am I missing something? https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/i386/libncurses5/filelist — guiverc, Jun 20 '20 at 00:33

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 20 '20 at 07:30

25

You have to update your package lists, as this package is still available from universe pocket.

Install them with:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get install libncurses5 libncurses5:i386

answered Jun 20 '20 at 07:30

N0rbert

103,523

this is weird, in the Software & Updates gui, the checkbox for Community-maintained free and open-source software (universe) is checked!
Tried grep -r --include '*.list' '^deb ' /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and universe appears there.
– eri0o Jun 21 '20 at 13:25
it magically found the packages after I restarted my computer (had not restarted in at least a week...). Thanks! – eri0o Jun 21 '20 at 14:11
Thanks! Thats solved my: Wine cannot find the ncurses library (libncurses.so.5) – Denis Trofimov Sep 25 '20 at 10:35
Isn't apt update missing between add repository and install? – dirceusemighini Sep 19 '21 at 18:59

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 07 '21 at 14:20

So adding the universe pocket didn't completely solve my problem, I found out that I also had to set up the correct foreign architecture.

To set this up, I first checked main architecture, which was amd64, and foreign architecture was empty. So I needed to add the i386 architecture as well.

$ sudo dpkg --print-architecture 
$ sudo dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Alejandro Suarez · Answer 3 · 2024-10-30T16:29:03.370

1

For Ubuntu 24 add to source list and then install:

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security main universe
sudo apt-get install libncurses5:i386

edited Oct 30 '24 at 16:29

answered Oct 30 '24 at 16:28

Alejandro Suarez

139

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 31 '24 at 03:48

In Ubuntu 24.04-25.04 check that the universe repository is in the line that starts with Components: in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources and then install libncurses6 packages with the following command:

sudo apt install libncurses6 libncurses6:i386

You might need to add the i386 architecture as well as mentioned in Jayden's answer.

How to install libncurses.so.5 in Ubuntu 20.04?

4 Answers4