# Ncurses-ruby installation in cygwin

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ncurses-ruby-installation-in-cygwin/144380>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 29, 2008, 6:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ncurses-ruby-installation-in-cygwin/144380 "2008-07-29T06:59:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unebaguettesvp](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/47e85d/32.png) [@unebaguettesvp](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unebaguettesvp)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2008, 6:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ncurses-ruby-installation-in-cygwin/144380/1 "2008-07-29T06:59:25Z")

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hi-

i’m trying to install ncurses-ruby on cygwin on windows. if i open up a  
cygwin terminal and go to the decompressed ncurses-ruby directory and  
type in “ruby extconf.rb” i get this error:

checking for unistd.h… no  
checking for /usr/include/ncurses.h… no  
checking for ncurses/curses.h… no  
checking for /usr/include/curses.h… no  
./extconf.rb:35: ncurses header file not found (RuntimeError)

\*\*\* extconf.rb failed \*\*\*  
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of necessary  
libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more details.  
You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:  
–with-opt-dir  
–without-opt-dir  
–with-opt-include  
–without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include  
–with-opt-lib  
–without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib  
–with-make-prog  
–without-make-prog  
–srcdir=.  
–curdir  
–ruby=/usr/bin/ruby

if i do ruby extconf.rb --srcdir=/usr/include i get the same error. i  
did install the ncurses-devel package through cygwin and the files do  
exist in C:\cygwin\usr\include\ncurses. curses.h is a file there. it  
seems like the ruby configure script doesn’t know to look in that  
directory. but supplying srcdir in the command line doesn’t help. also,  
unistd.h is in that same directory: /usr/include. i’m at a loss. any  
ideas? thanks!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unebaguettesvp](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/47e85d/32.png) [@unebaguettesvp](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unebaguettesvp)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 1:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ncurses-ruby-installation-in-cygwin/144380/2 "2008-07-30T01:50:09Z")

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my problem was that i didn’t include the gcc and make packages when  
installing cygwin. now it works!