Whenever you are trying to do kernel menuconfig very first time after installation of Ubuntu, its chances that you will see the error as below, $ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-bcm2708-linux-gnueabi- menuconfig HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/mconf.o In file included from scripts/kconfig/mconf.c:23:0: scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/dialog.h:38:20: fatal error: curses.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. scripts/Makefile.host:124: recipe for target 'scripts/kconfig/mconf.o' failed make[1]: * [scripts/kconfig/mconf.o] Error 1 Makefile:546: recipe for target 'menuconfig' failed make: * [menuconfig] Error 2 This error is due to that your ubuntu doesn’t have “ncurses” library installed. Ncurses is required for having menu like user interface onto the terminal.

Command line execution

Terminalbash
sudo apt-cache search libncurses libncurses5 - shared libraries for terminal handling libncurses5-dbg - debugging/profiling libraries for ncurses libncurses5-dev - developer's libraries for ncurses Now, lets install this library as, $ sudo apt-get install libncurses5 libncurses5-dev You may see some different version of libncurses and use the same as you see in apt-cache search command.

Implementation details

You can read more about ncurses at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses Lets identify which is the related ncurses package is available for installation, $ sudo apt-cache search libncurses libncurses5 - shared libraries for terminal handling libncurses5-dbg - debugging/profiling libraries for ncurses libncurses5-dev - developer's libraries for ncurses Now, lets install this library as, $ sudo apt-get install libncurses5 libncurses5-dev You may see some different version of libncurses and use the same as you see in apt-cache search command.

Gotchas and common issues

  • Permission checks - verify user access rights and sudo privileges before executing system-level operations.

  • Environment configuration - double-check path variables and dependency versions to prevent runtime failures.

  • Backup safeguards - maintain configuration backups before applying system or database modifications.

Following these steps ensures clean configuration and reliable execution for resolve : fatal error: curses.h: no such file or directory.