Re: (newbie) Unable to validate install - Error opening terminal

[Thomas Dickey]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:55:20AM -0600, Bill Klein wrote:
> First, let me state that I am certain that this is a "user error".  I am a
> Windows XP person (no screams please) and have installed Cygwin - and that
> seems to work fine.  I am NOT an experienced Unix or Linux user, so please
> accept my apologies in advance if I have missed something obvious.
> 
> I tried installing ncurses-5.7 and have followed the instructions (using
> TAR, configure, and make). According to the instructions, before I run "make
> install", I should run the programs in the test directory. when I entered
>   ./ncurses
> 
> I get the
>  error opening terminal: cygwin

ok - then the test/ncurses.exe is looking for the terminfo database
in some other location than where you have it installed.

That could happen if the configure script's "prefix" is set different.

If you have it installed someplace, then you can make the test programs
look there by setting the TERMINFO or TERMINFO_DIRS environment variables
to point to that directory.
 
> I found some online comments that some programs can't use cygwin.  I then
> installed and ran from rxvt.  (I totally removed ncurses and reinstalled
> from there) and still get the message but now it gives me the message for 
>   terminal: xterm
> 
> I have verified that I have the directory
>   cygwin/usr/share/terminfo
    ^^^^^^ (within cygwin shells, you'd see just /usr/share/terminfo)

> and that it has lots of subdirectories including
>   c/cygwin
> and
>   x/xterm

one of cygwin's pitfalls is that it allows one to install filesystems
that are in text-mode rather than binary.  (that would make accesses
to binary files such as terminfo not work - but since you say infocmp
is working, that doesn't _sound_ like the problem).
 
> Using google, I found one note about problems with Cygwin if "C:" isn't my
> local drive, but C is my local drive.
> 
> I have also entered
>   infocmp
> 
> from both the bash and the rxvt shells and they see to find "appropriate"
> term info

What does
        infocmp
        infocmp cygwin
show?

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <address@hidden>
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

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