Re: Unable to find the Ncurses libraries

["Sean 'Shaleh' Perry" <shalehperry@attbi.com>]

> 
> moseley@bumby:~$ locate libncurses.so
> /lib/libncurses.so.5
> /lib/libncurses.so.5.2
> 
># apt-get install libncurses5-dev
> 
> moseley@bumby:~$ locate libncurses.so                             
> /lib/libncurses.so.5
> /lib/libncurses.so.5.2
> /usr/lib/libncurses.so -> /lib/libncurses.so.5
> 
> So, how are 
> 
>   /lib/libncurses.so.5
>   /lib/libncurses.so.5.2
> 
> useful without the symlink?  Are binaries looking specifically for
> /lib/libncureses.so.5?
> 

The linker uses libfoo.so.  The compiled binary looks for libfoo.so.version. 
The .so is only needed to compile.  Each -dev package contains the .so link and
the headers.  It also has a libfoo.a.  This is another version of the library
used for static compilation.  static means everything is compiled into the
binary, so no looking for libs later.  It also means that to fix a bug in the
library you have to recompile the statically linked program as well.