First fix two tiny bugs: patch -Np1 -i ../&ncurses-etip-patch; patch -Np1 -i ../&ncurses-vsscanf-patch; The first patch corrects the etip.h header file, and the second patch prevents some compiler warnings on the use of deprecated headers. Now prepare Ncurses for compilation: ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-shared \     --without-debug Compile the package: make Install the package: make install Give the Ncurses libraries execute permissions: chmod 755 /usr/lib/*.&ncurses-version; And fix a library that shouldn't be executable: chmod 644 /usr/lib/libncurses++.a Move the libraries to the /lib directory, where they're expected to reside: mv /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5* /lib Since the libraries have been moved to /lib, a few symlinks are currently pointing towards non-existing files. Recreate those symlinks: ln -sf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libncurses.so ln -sf libncurses.so /usr/lib/libcurses.so