From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Cannot open termcap database Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:47:46 -0500 Message-ID: References: <7dbe73ed0912031141h781e61d1l18776fb696cc4916@mail.gmail.com> <200912032120.nB3LK3MN028567@godzilla.ics.uci.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1259891289 6142 80.91.229.12 (4 Dec 2009 01:48:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 4 Dec 2009 01:48:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: A Soare , emacs-devel@gnu.org, Mathias Dahl To: Dan Nicolaescu Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 04 02:48:02 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NGNH7-0003hR-2C for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:48:01 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:33374 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NGNH6-000099-PB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:48:00 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NGNGz-00006h-U4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:47:53 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NGNGu-0008Sl-EJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:47:52 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=49687 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NGNGu-0008Sc-6f for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:47:48 -0500 Original-Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.181]:6032 helo=ironport2-out.pppoe.ca) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NGNGu-0002SD-8P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 03 Dec 2009 20:47:48 -0500 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: ArEEAGb5F0tFpZ1E/2dsb2JhbACBTtRjhDIEihmDAw X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.47,338,1257138000"; d="scan'208";a="50653550" Original-Received: from 69-165-157-68.dsl.teksavvy.com (HELO pastel.home) ([69.165.157.68]) by ironport2-out.pppoe.ca with ESMTP; 03 Dec 2009 20:47:47 -0500 Original-Received: by pastel.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 019C386C4; Thu, 3 Dec 2009 20:47:46 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <200912032120.nB3LK3MN028567@godzilla.ics.uci.edu> (Dan Nicolaescu's message of "Thu, 3 Dec 2009 13:20:03 -0800 (PST)") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:118222 Archived-At: >> > I tried to compile emacs for console, and I got the error >> > Cannot open termcap database >> > I solved the problem by installing ncurses-dev. >> > One can introduce a check in ./configure.ac for the existence of terminfo data >> > base when compiling for console and giving a suggestive error message? >> I get bitten by this each time I compile and install Emacs on a new >> Ubuntu GNU/Linux machine. Each time I have to surf around to >> understand what to do about it. If it is possible for "us" to fix it >> it would be nice. > configure could try to detect either the termcap or terminfo headers and > if none are present should error out. All the systems we support > nowadays that use ttys have either termcap or terminfo, so we don't lose > anything. I think the problem isn't so much the C headers, as the database. For some reason, some distribution seem to have a tendency to install some packages that provide the termcap header files without having the termcap database installed, so compilation works fine, but it fails at run-time. Stefan