According to its man page, "terminfo is a data base describing
terminals, used by screen-oriented programs...". It defines a
generic set of control sequences (escape codes) used to display
text on terminals, and makes possible support for different
terminal hardware without the need for special drivers. The
terminfo libraries are located in /usr/share/terminfo on modern
Linux distributions. The terminfo database has largely
supplanted the older termcap and the totally obsolete termlib
ones. This is usually of no concern for program installation
except when dealing with a package that requires termcap. Most
Linux distributions now use terminfo, but still retain the older
termcap libraries for compatibility with legacy applications
(see /etc/termcap). Sometimes there is a special compatibility
package that needs to be installed to facilitate use of termcap
linked binaries. Very occasionally, an #define termcap statement
might need to be commented out of a source file. Check the
appropriate doc files for your pa