ncurses for Debian ------------------ The ncurses package is split into nine parts: libncurses5 The ncurses shared libraries libncurses5-dev Development environment libncurses5-dbg Debugging libraries libncursesw5 The ncurses shared libraries, with wide character support libncursesw5-dev Development environment for libncursesw5 libncursesw5-dbg Debugging libraries for libncursesw5 ncurses-bin Various small applications (clear, reset, tic, etc.) ncurses-base Standard terminal entries ncurses-term All the rest of the terminal entries All debian systems should have libncurses5, ncurses-base, and ncurses-bin installed. The -dev and -dbg packages are only useful for developers wishing to compile programs which use ncurses. ncurses-term is the full contents of the terminfo database, and includes many strange and obsolete terminals.