Set the environment variable QTDIR to where Qt3 is installed. For example, in bash, export QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt3 To find out where Qt is installed. If you are using a binary devel package: In rpm based systems: - rpm -qa | grep qt tells you what Qt packages are installed. Say the devel package is called libqt3-devel-3.0.5-7mdk, then - rpm -ql libqt3-devel | less shows what is inside the devel package. ('q' exits less, in case you don't know). You should be able to see a directory that is the _base_ of the Qt files. In other words, QTDIR is the directory so that $QTDIR/bin -> has files like designer, moc, qmake, uic $QTDIR/include -> has qt header files like qaccel.h $QTDIR/lib -> qt lib files like libqt-mt.so In debian based system: - dpkg -l *qt* shows which Qt packages are installed. If the devel is called, say, libqt3-dev - dpkg -L libqt3-dev | less shows the package contents.