Installing rt preempt

hello,

I am tryimg to install rt preempt(the patch ) on the rockchip 3228 based Libre renegade board. It presently has their version of ubuntu 16.04. Following the instructions from several different sites(more like trying what worked), managed to get the kernal sources unpacked, the patch unpacked and the sources patched. My next step would be select the realtime from the blue menu, but here is the issue, there is no menu!! Ive tried make menuconfig and keep getting this, it seems im missing a header file

firefly@firefly:/usr/src/linux-4.4.12$ make menuconfig
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/mconf.o
In file included from scripts/kconfig/mconf.c:23:0:
scripts/kconfig/lxdialog/dialog.h:38:20: fatal error: curses.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
scripts/Makefile.host:108: recipe for target 'scripts/kconfig/mconf.o' failed
make[1]: *** [scripts/kconfig/mconf.o] Error 1
Makefile:531: recipe for target 'menuconfig' failed
make: *** [menuconfig] Error 2


I attempted to install
apt-get install libncurses5-dev
as it seems it would make the menu, but it resulted in this

firefly@firefly:/usr/src/linux-4.4.12$ make rk3228_defconfig
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/conf.o
scripts/kconfig/conf.c:722:1: fatal error: opening dependency file scripts/kconfig/.conf.o.d: Permission denied
}
^
compilation terminated.
scripts/Makefile.host:108: recipe for target 'scripts/kconfig/conf.o' failed
make[1]: *** [scripts/kconfig/conf.o] Error 1
Makefile:531: recipe for target 'rk3228_defconfig' failed
make: *** [rk3228_defconfig] Error 2


Ill admit, Im out of my comfort zone with this, any advice /suggestions on where to go with this?
Should I be using the firefly/rockchip kernal sources instead of the palin linux?
Thanks as always....

Have you tried sudo make menuconfig ?