How to install libncurses.so.5 in Ubuntu 20.04?

Question

I need both 32 bit and 64 bit for libncurses.so.5 on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) for building an Android application on an older Android NDK. What are my options? libncurses.so.5 is not on apt-get anymore.

Answer 1

You have to update your package lists, as this package is still available from universe pocket.

Install them with:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get install libncurses5 libncurses5:i386

Answer 2

So adding the universe pocket didn't completely solve my problem, I found out that I also had to set up the correct foreign architecture.

To set this up, I first checked main architecture, which was amd64, and foreign architecture was empty. So I needed to add the i386 architecture as well.

$ sudo dpkg --print-architecture 
$ sudo dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 

Answer 3

For Ubuntu 24 add to source list and then install:

• deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security main universe
• sudo apt-get install libncurses5:i386

Answer 4

In Ubuntu 24.04-25.04 check that the universe repository is in the line that starts with Components: in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources and then install libncurses6 packages with the following command:

sudo apt install libncurses6 libncurses6:i386

You might need to add the i386 architecture as well as mentioned in Jayden's answer.