Statically Compiling Nano

instructions

# I was targeting a machine using this version of Debian. Hopefully, you're targeting something newer.
docker run --rm -it debian:stretch bash

# This version of Debian is old enough that the package list has been moved to the archives.
# You may not need to do this.
# Note: if you're using a backports distribution, you'll need to do the same for /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*
sed -i s/deb.debian.org/archive.debian.org/g /etc/apt/sources.list
apt update # Some errors. Seems fine?

# aptitude is easier to use if there are problems/conflicts.
apt install aptitude
aptitude install git autoconf automake autopoint gcc gettext groff make pkg-config texinfo libncurses-dev libncursesw5-dev libgpm-dev file

git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/nano.git
cd nano
git checkout v7.2 # Or whatever tag

# See https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nano.git/tree/README.hacking
./autogen.sh
# No idea what I'm doing here :) I just mashed buttons until it worked.
# LIBS, in particular was annoying: the order is important, so I ended up duplicating ncursesw and tinfo here
# (both of which are already included in nano's build scripts). No doubt there's a better way.
./configure CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -static" LDFLAGS="-static" LIBS="-lncursesw -ltinfo -lgpm"
make

file src/nano # verify that it worked and is statically linked

# On the host, not the Docker container. (In another terminal. Don't log out of the docker container yet!)
docker cp /nano/src/nano . # or whatever paths