Re: Portable curses

[maya%netbsd.org@localhost]

pkgsrc should be better about using base curses now, but it's creating a
lot of problems.

pkgsrc tries to hide some of the installed system with wrappers, but
isn't hiding things well enough from cmake. The wrappers only allow
linking to things added by buildlink3.mk, or things in /usr/lib.

so if you have an ncurses package installed, cmake will find parts of
it, so it will decide to use ncurses.

then, it fails to link with the ncurses library due to pkgsrc wrappers
(which try to hide ncurses).

So packages will suddenly begin failing to build with netbsd curses if
you have ncurses installed. Especially cmake ones.

To make matters worse, I could make packages that work with netbsd
curses prefer curses from /usr/lib, but pkgsrc doesn't hide anything in
/usr/lib (it's always possible to link against libraries there), and
then if you have an OS which also ships a base curses but doens't want
to use it, I can't stop it being used. This is the case for illumos.

Maybe FAKE_NCURSES=yes is the answer?

On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 01:32:36AM -0400, Dan LaBell wrote:
> Sounds like somewhere  some one started with a strong MSM-linux bias IMO
> 
> Fact is, according to Computer Science, one can't have an O.S. w/o some form
> of Package System.  I know and love those few unique things about BSD that
> can be done with ed and vi, esp. with a rescue slice.
> BUT ANYWAY
> PKGSRC is strongly -- it is in fact -- biased toward ncurses,
> It's like it's the deliberate choice of Researchers to tweak the particular
> "make dot conf" or m-k dot conf syntax,(*) to make, damn, sure either, one
> learns  the syntax, rather than just enjoy reading it, or like ncurses will
> be downloaded, and built, if not the 1st day, in  the 1st week, for sure,
> with, like four nines!
> Seriously.
> Here's an example, that will, both suck in ncurses, and prove U DONT need
> ncurses,
> just for color.  So build vms-empire via pkgsrc, then cd to the work
> directory, and then apply this attached ed-script, or just look at the
> attached picture.



> 
> (*) every so often
> 
> 
> > 
> > I think it should be more widespread. There's already a third-party
> > port (https://github.com/sabotage-linux/netbsd-curses), maybe there
> > should be a tarball somewhere on NetBSD.org?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > ncurses is available in pkgsrc for those who need/desire it.
> > 
> > Having it in base... well, I know I am biassed but it does mean that we
> > potentially have a monoculture when it comes to curses.
> > 
> > I wouldn't really term it "portable" more like "the same bugs
> > everywhere" which is not really the same :)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From:
> > "Cág" <ca6c%bitmessage.ch@localhost>
> > 
> > To:
> > <netbsd-users%netbsd.org@localhost>
> > Cc:
> > 
> > Sent:
> > Tue, 07 Aug 2018 14:19:36 -0500
> > Subject:
> > Portable curses
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --
> > caóc
> > 
>