Prepare Ncurses to be compiled: ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-shared Continue with compiling the package: make Install the package: make install Give the ncurses libraries executable permission: chmod 755 /usr/lib/*.&ncurses-version; Move the libraries to the /lib directory, where they're expected to reside: mv /usr/lib/libncurses.so.5* /lib Since the libaries have been moved to /lib, a few symlinks are currently pointing towards non-existing files. Create the following symlinks to account for this: ln -sf libncurses.a /usr/lib/libcurses.a && ln -sf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libncurses.so && ln -sf ../../lib/libncurses.so.5 /usr/lib/libcurses.so