diff --git a/configure b/configure
index f21ef3bf4e..825c47256b 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #! /bin/sh
-# From configure.ac Revision: 217642 .
+# From configure.ac Revision: 226053 .
 # Guess values for system-dependent variables and create Makefiles.
 # Generated by GNU Autoconf 2.61 for asterisk 1.6.
 #
@@ -37412,8 +37412,8 @@ elif test "x$CURSES_LIB" != "x" ; then
 elif test "x$NCURSES_LIB" != "x" ; then
   EDITLINE_LIB="$NCURSES_LIB"
 else
-  { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: *** termcap support not found" >&5
-echo "$as_me: error: *** termcap support not found" >&2;}
+  { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: *** termcap support not found (on modern systems, this typically means libncurses5-dev is missing)" >&5
+echo "$as_me: error: *** termcap support not found (on modern systems, this typically means libncurses5-dev is missing)" >&2;}
    { (exit 1); exit 1; }; }
 fi
 
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 5b971953df..896c64f7b1 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1544,7 +1544,7 @@ elif test "x$CURSES_LIB" != "x" ; then
 elif test "x$NCURSES_LIB" != "x" ; then
   EDITLINE_LIB="$NCURSES_LIB"
 else
-  AC_MSG_ERROR(*** termcap support not found)
+  AC_MSG_ERROR([*** termcap support not found (on modern systems, this typically means libncurses5-dev is missing)])
 fi
 AC_SUBST(EDITLINE_LIB)