R 3.5.3 fails to start on Ubuntu 19.04 (libtinfo.so.5 missing)

[scottstanfield]

Under clean install of server-based Ubuntu 19.04 (kernel 5.0) with MRAN 3.5.3 "Great Truth" install successful but R fails to run due to a similar missing library.

% R
/opt/microsoft/ropen/3.5.3/lib64/R/bin/exec/R: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Workaround:

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

Curious as to where the reference to libtinfo is coming from (it's a low-level terminal library for ncurses):

moana lib64/R/lib » pwd
/opt/microsoft/ropen/3.5.3/lib64/R/lib
moana lib64/R/lib » ldd libR.so
        [snip]
        libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007fb235876000)
moana lib64/R/lib »

[krz]

this workaround still works on ubuntu 20.04 daily snapshot

[brianguertin]

There's also an ubuntu package "libtinfo5" which contains libtinfo.so.5, installing that works for me (Ubuntu 20.04)