Re: Problem compiling dialog static / Error opening terminal: linux

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Michael Setzer II wrote:

> First, note: the links on
> http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.htmlare pointing to
> 5.4, which are not there any longer, but 5.5 are. Probable just needs to be
> updated.

thanks (I thought I had updated that file).

> I've been working on the g4l program, which uses dialog, and have been using
> the dialog program that the previous author had created for use from the
> boot cd. version 1.0-20040731 size 717749 bytes. I saw there was a new
> version 1.0-20051107, but have run into some problems getting it to work.
>
> 1. downloaded the new source, extracted it, and did a ./configure, modified
> the makefile to add -static to the gcc line, and make on a fedora core 4
> machine, and got errors.

configure ncurses disabling gpm (if there's no gpm, it won't try to use 
the dl library).

If you need gpm statically linked, I'll have to add some more 
configuration scripting - the various packagers kept including the 
conflicting wgetch() code from ncurses in their gpm packages, so I changed 
ncurses to use dlsym() over a year ago - that at least lets one write an 
_ncurses_ application to use gpm, rather than things such as w3m that 
introduce conflicting symbols.

> 2. I was able to get the exact same code to compile on a fedora core 3
> machine, and it was able to config and make a static version of dialog with
> a size of 841914 bytes. It works from an xterm terminal, and the a
> term=linux (ctrl-alt F1) on a fedora Core 3 box, but I get the error "Error
> opening terminal: linux" when I try to run it. The TERM=linux on both the

strace might show what path it is trying to open (probably it's looking 
for a different path for terminfo, which can be overridden by setting
$TERMINFO or $TERMINFO_DIRS).  For a static build, it would make sense to 
compile-in "linux" as a fallback.

> boot cd (kernel.org 2.16.4.2) and the Fedora Core 3 terminal, so it works
> with TERM=linux on one. I do also notice tha the new one, that works on the
> Fedora is showing symbols instead of the shaded box. Does do the shaded box
> in the xterm window thou, and the older version does the lines in the fedora
> core (ctrl-alt f1) window.

I'm not sure about this: perhaps the locale support isn't present, but 
dialog/ncurses thinks it is there and getting bad data as a result.

> The new mouse support was what I was looking at, since an earlier request to
> update the g4l was to add mouse support.
>
> 3. I thought it might need a newer ncurses, but I found the opposite seems
> to be true. I downloaded the 5.5 version, and did the ./configure, make and
> make install on the Fedora Core 4 machine, and got the same errors. I then
> did the 5.5 update on a Fedora Core 3 machine, that was able to compile it,
> and then it gets the same errors at the Fedora Core 4 machine does. So, it
> appears something was changed in version 5.5 that causes problems.

5.5 uses nl_langinfo(CODESET) to replace some ad hoc environment variable
checks - that's the main thing affecting some older applications.  Though
dialog isn't an "older" application, it does affect the way it interacts
with the locale support.

But it sounds as if you're having problems with the machine that should
have locale support, rather than running from the cd (which is 
self-contained).

> Not sure if it just isn't possible to get the new version to work from the
> boot cd, or if special kernel or other options need to be added to get it to
> work. I don't have information from the pervious author on what he had to
> do, to build dialog for the CD.
>
> Thanks

--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net