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MCUXpresso V24.12 under Ubuntu 24.04 libncursesw.so.5 not found

I am getting an error when I try to debug the Open LPC example "periph_blinky" on the LPCXpresso 1769 development board # OM13085 using LinkServer.  The error says:

Could not determine GDB version using command: arm-none-eabi-gdb --version

arm-none-eabi-gdb: error while loading shared libraries: libncursesw.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

libncursesw.so.5 cannot be installed with apt because it is no longer available for Ubuntu 24.04. libncursesw6 is installed.

Do you have any suggestions?

Re: MCUXpresso V24.12 under Ubuntu 24.04 libncursesw.so.5 not found

I'm not familiar with the actual implementation of libncurses and the differences between 5 & 6,  so I cannot guarantee that your workaround is completely correct. The ABIs certainly differ even though the APIs might be largely the same.

Note that we released MCUXpresso IDE v25.06 recently (MCUXpresso IDE v25.06 Now Available - NXP Community) and this is shipped with newer Arm GNU Toolchain that no longer depends on the libncurses 5.

Best regards,

Adrian

Re: MCUXpresso V24.12 under Ubuntu 24.04 libncursesw.so.5 not found

After making symbolic links: libncursesw.so5->libnsursesw.so6 and libtinfo.so.5->libtinfo.so.6, the debugger worked.  The symbolic links need to be made in two places: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu, and also /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu (this is for Ubuntu 24.04).

Re: MCUXpresso V24.12 under Ubuntu 24.04 libncursesw.so.5 not found

When I make a symbolic link from libncursesw.so5->libnsursesw.so6, I get a new error:
"Could not determine GDB version using command: arm-none-eabi-gdb --version

arm-none-eabi-gdb: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

Re: MCUXpresso V24.12 under Ubuntu 24.04 libncursesw.so.5 not found

Hi @kk7xo 

Based on your information, 

arm-none-eabi-gdb (from older toolchains) was linked to libncursesw.so.5.

Ubuntu 24.04 moved forward to only libncursesw.so.6.

Can you try creating a fake symbol link to libncursesw. so. 6

ln -s libncursesw.so.6 libncursesw.so.5.

BR

Harry

Re: MCUXpresso V24.12 under Ubuntu 24.04 libncursesw.so.5 not found

I'm not certain about this, but I think the problem is related to the version of Gnu tools that are bundled with MCUXpresso.  Apparently, gcc version 13 requires libncursesw.so.5, whereas gcc version 14 works with libncurses6.  Add to that the fact that the Ubuntu 24.04 distro does not include libncurses5.  This should be verified by someone at NXP before it is declared a valid fix.