How do I install ncurses header files?

Question

I was trying to configure the kernel and I got the following error. Can somebody please tell me what I should do?

root@nitr-desktop:/usr/src/linux# make menuconfig
 *** Unable to find the ncurses libraries or the
 *** required header files.
 *** 'make menuconfig' requires the ncurses libraries.
 *** 
 *** Install ncurses (ncurses-devel) and try again.
 *** 
make[1]: *** [scripts/kconfig/dochecklxdialog] Error 1
make: *** [menuconfig] Error 2

Solution 1

Open up your terminal and install libncurses-dev by using this command:

sudo apt-get install libncurses-dev

Solution 2

Above problem solved now. all I did was:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev

Solution 3

Tested on Ubuntu 17.04

You should install libncurses5-dev and libncursesw5-dev:

apt install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev

References: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-install-ncurses-library-headers-on-debian-ubuntu-centos-fedora/

Comments

[Admin]

Try installing first libncurses5: sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev

[user643722]

Not found. This should be ncurses-dev as in the answer below.

[David Foerster]

@user643722: What's the problem? apt-cache show libncurses-dev yields N: Can't select versions from package 'libncurses-dev' as it is purely virtual, which means I could install it like the answer says.

[Throw Away Account]

libncurses-dev works for me.

[isaaclw]

I know this is ubuntu, but it's still my top result for debian searches... debian uses libncurses5-dev

[marcelocra]

I got a cannot find -lncursesw which I solved using the other answer: apt install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev. Upvote it too.

[Chirag Mittal]

It says Note, selecting 'libncurses5-dev' instead of 'ncurses-dev'. But I specifically need libncurses-dev instead of libncurses5-dev.