[Slackbuilds-users] FreeBASIC installs broken

[B Watson]

On 12/10/20, thinkunix via SlackBuilds-users
<slackbuilds-users at slackbuilds.org> wrote:
> Jude DaShiell wrote:
>> Once installed running fbc to compile anything fbc complains it can't
>> find
>> libtinfo.so.5 and fails to compile anything.
>> Does the SlackBuild file need some work?
>
> I ran into this a while ago and didn't spend much time on it.
> The file it is looking for is installed in /usr/lib{64} but
> fbc still has issues with it.

Huh? Slackware 14.2 doesn't have libtinfo.so.anything.

That library is the terminfo functions from libncurses. On 14.2, if
your application links with libncurses.so, it already has those same
functions (because they're not separated into their own lib, in 14.2's
ncurses).

> I think it's an issue with the source, not the slackbuild.
> I had the problem on both Slackware 14.1 and 14.2 on both
> 32 and 64 bit systems.

I don't see any sources, just prebuilt binary packages... which
were probably built on Debian or Ubuntu (or a Red Hat variant),
meaning it was built on a system where the terminfo stuff is
separated into libtinfo.so.

One "quick & dirty" way to get past the libtinfo.so.5 issue would be
to create an empty library. Probably this would work:

# gcc -xc -shared -o/usr/lib64/libtinfo.so.5 /dev/null

(replace lib64 with lib on 32-bit, of course)

Another thing I've done in the past, use a symlink:
# cd /usr/lib64
# ln -s libncurses.so.5 libtinfo.so.5

Both of these are "band-aid" solutions, not proper fixes.

> Just download FreeBASIC-1.04.0, the version in SBo 14.1,
> and build it.  It works fine.

Hm. There's source for the version that's on SBo now, why does the
build use binary packages instead of compiling from source?

That's really a question for the maintainer. Dimitris Zlatanidis,
hopefully you're reading this too.