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<TITLE>Building and Installing Software Packages for Linux: Termcap and Terminfo Issues</TITLE>
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<H2><A NAME="s5">5. Termcap and Terminfo Issues</A></H2>
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<P>According to its man page, <EM>"terminfo is a data base describing
terminals, used by screen-oriented programs..."</EM>. It defines a
generic set of control sequences (escape codes) used to display text on
terminals, and makes possible support for different terminal hardware
without the need for special drivers. The <EM>terminfo</EM> libraries
are located in <CODE>/usr/share/terminfo</CODE> on modern Linux distributions.
<P>The <EM>terminfo</EM> database has largely supplanted the older
<EM>termcap</EM> and the totally obsolete <EM>termlib</EM> ones. This
is usually of no concern for program installation except when dealing
with a package that requires <EM>termcap</EM>.
<P>Most Linux distributions now use <EM>terminfo</EM>, but still retain the
older termcap libraries for compatibility with legacy applications (see
<CODE>/etc/termcap</CODE>). Sometimes there is a special compatibility package
that needs to be installed to facilitate use of termcap linked binaries.
Very occasionally, an <EM>#define termcap</EM> statement might need to
be commented out of a source file. Check the appropriate doc files for
your particular distribution for definitive information on this.
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