1. Compatibility package for old termcap-based programs. The termcap-compat package provides the libtermcap.so.2 and /etc/termcap files which are required to run non-Debian, binary-only termcap-based programs. Since libc6-based programs are hopefully "modern" enough to be linked with ncurses (or slang), this package only provides a libc5-based libtermcap library. You do not need to install this package to run Debian-packaged programs since Debian GNU/Linux uses terminfo and not termcap. You need this package if a program (that you cannot recompile) fails to run with the error message "...: can't load library 'libtermcap.so.2'" or complains about a missing /etc/termcap file. The termcap-compat package isn't meant to be used to compile programs therefore it doesn't provide all the necessary files for compilation. If you want to compile a program that claims to need termcap, why not try ncurses's termcap emulation instead? It's as simple as linking with ncurses instead of libtermcap (i.e. replace the '-ltermcap' with '-lncurses' in the makefile). Ncurses' termcap emulation routines translate terminfo entries to termcap entries on the fly, so you don't even need an /etc/termcap file. This package provides: libtermcap.so shared library, version 2.0.8 termcap database, version 10.2.7 From Debian 3.0r0 APT