Wasmer: Ubuntu 20.04 (focal): Missing system dependency libtinfo.so.5

[asaaki]

Describe the bug

Under (at least) Ubuntu 20.04 users won't be able to run wasmer without manually installing libtinfo5.
For a truely standalone executable the assumed environment dependencies should be very narrow or absent; I guess Ubuntu is a prime candidate to challenge such assumptions regularly.

echo "`wasmer -V` | `rustc -V` | `uname -m`"

wasmer 1.0.0-alpha3 | rustc 1.46.0 (04488afe3 2020-08-24) | x86_64

Extended environment info

I'm running Ubuntu on a Windows 10 machine via WSL2, but my hard guess is that this is only a Ubuntu issue alone.
It is not too uncommon that with new release cycles some dependencies get bumped and break executables not installed via the package manager (aka _fetched from somewhere in the internet_).

$ uname -a
Linux kattegat-win 4.19.128-microsoft-standard #1 SMP Tue Jun 23 12:58:10 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
Release:        20.04
Codename:       focal

Steps to reproduce

1. Open a Ubuntu 20.04 environment
2. In a shell run installation as described by the readme: curl https://get.wasmer.io -sSfL | sh
3. The following error message displays after installation:

/home/asaaki/.wasmer/bin/wasmer: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
error: wasmer was installed, but doesn't seem to be working :(

Expected behavior

Installation and execution of wasmer succeeds without having to resolve the assumed dependencies manually.

Actual behavior

Installation partially succeeds, execution fails.

# installation error
/home/asaaki/.wasmer/bin/wasmer: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
error: wasmer was installed, but doesn't seem to be working :(

# execution error
 wasmer -V
wasmer: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Additional context

Manual fix by user possible

Manually fixable by running the following command:

sudo apt install libtinfo5

The manual fix is an okay hack for users familar with Ubuntu systems in particular.
But we should not assume such knowledge and skills.

[mejedi]

Same issue on Ubuntu 19.10.
@asaaki Thanks for the workaround.

[MarkMcCaskey]

I think this should be fixed now, we fixed it right after releasing alpha4 but you can try it with a release from Wasmer-nightly https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer-nightly/releases ; we don't currently have a way to install directly from wasmer-nightly like we do with standard Wasmer but it's on the list of things we want to do

[syrusakbary]

This issue is now fixed, and the latest distributed version of Wasmer no longer has the issue.

Closing :)