On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 11:15:58PM -0400, iMac wrote:
> libcurses.so.5  --  What is it and where can I get it?
> 
> I have downloaded several packages on my computer that won't execute,
> and they complain that they can't find "libcurses.so.5".   Does
> anybody know what this is and where it can be found?

man curses

it's a library for text-mode screen manipulations, and adds a layer of
abstraction to raw terminal emulation.  your binary is looking for
version 5 of the library, but it's not on your system.

NetBSD 2.0 ships with libcurses.so.6.  NetBSD 1.6 shipped with
libcurses.so.5, so if you grab the old tarballs, you should be able to
selectively unpack libcurses.so.5 from base.tgz.  (you'll want both
/usr/lib/libcurses.so.5 and /usr/lib/libcurses.so.5.*)

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier@poofygoof.com
              "silly brewer, saaz are for pils!"  --  virt