How To Install libncurses5 on Ubuntu 20.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install libncurses5 on Ubuntu 20.04. libncurses5 is shared libraries for terminal handling (legacy version)

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install libncurses5 on Ubuntu 20.04.

What is libncurses5

libncurses5 is:

The ncurses library routines are a terminal-independent method of updating character screens with reasonable optimization.

This package contains the legacy shared libraries necessary to run programs compiled with ncurses.

There are three methods to install libncurses5 on Ubuntu 20.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install libncurses5 Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install libncurses5 using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install libncurses5

Install libncurses5 Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install libncurses5 using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install libncurses5

Install libncurses5 Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install libncurses5 using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install libncurses5

How To Uninstall libncurses5 on Ubuntu 20.04

To uninstall only the libncurses5 package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove libncurses5

Uninstall libncurses5 And Its Dependencies

To uninstall libncurses5 and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 20.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove libncurses5

Remove libncurses5 Configurations and Data

To remove libncurses5 configuration and data from Ubuntu 20.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge libncurses5

Remove libncurses5 configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove libncurses5 configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge libncurses5

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install libncurses5 package on Ubuntu 20.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.