How to determine what linux distros have particular shared library versions without installing them?

[yurivict]

How can one determine what particular Linux distro releases have particular shared library suffixes without installing them?

I tried to install one commercial product on Fedora 37 but it fails because it expects libtinfo.so.5 but Fedora 37 has libtinfo.so.6
How can one know what is the last Fedora release that had libtinfo.so.5?

Is there a database or a website that lists all installed files for each linux distro/release such that one wouldn't need to install them to find this information?

 

[f33dm3bits]

I think you are looking for this?

ncurses-compat-libs-6.3-4.20220501.fc37.i686 : Ncurses compatibility libraries
Repo        : updates
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5

ncurses-compat-libs-6.3-4.20220501.fc37.x86_64 : Ncurses compatibility libraries
Repo        : updates
Matched from:
Filename    : /usr/lib64/libtinfo.so.5

 

[kc1di]

Hello @yurivict and welcome to Linux.org forum.
you can download the package from here but not sure if you'll need to find other dependencies.

https://pkgs.org/download/libtinfo.so.5

 

[MikeWalsh]

When we encounter this issue in Puppy Linux, so long as the required version is older than the default one, we can usually fix it by creating a sym-link - named as the dependency you NEED, and pointing to the one you HAVE. Most stuff in Linux is often backwards-compatible.....though rarely will it be forwards-compatible.

Something like:-

cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
ln -s ./libtinfo.so.6 ./libtinfo.so.5

....and will probably need to be prefaced by "sudo".

(Sorry, my bad. You're in Fedora, so this is RPM-based.....means the file-system's a little different. More like:-

cd /usr/lib64
ln -s ./libtinfo.so.6 ./libtinfo.so.5

.....again, prefaced by "sudo". With the recent file-system "rationalisation" over the last couple of years, stuff that used to go in either /lib OR /lib64 now goes in /usr/lib OR /usr/lib64. Everything goes in /usr now.....for better or worse. It's supposed to make everything simpler, apparently, and is a 'hold-over' from the early days of Linux, when disk sizes were a LOT smaller than they are now.)

However, you may just find it simpler to follow kc1d1's advice above. We do a lot of manual "digging-around" in, and modification of the file-system in Puppy, because Puppy runs as /root.....but this kind of thing is often a lot more awkward to implement in mainstream distros, where /root is carefully isolated from the users.

Most mainstream distros prefer you do everything through the package manager. Everything is 'registered' on the system, and the system is aware of all changes that have been made.....on top of which, Synaptic - or whatever you use in Fedora - will be designed to prevent you from making any changes that it considers will compromise stability. We do use a package manager in Puppy, but Pup's PM doesn't have anything like this kind of 'stranglehold' over the rest of the system. It's a lot more flexible, in so many ways.


Mike.