Ubuntu universe repos include 'eric' as a package (which pulls in scintilla automatically). PyQt development is a well-beaten path in almost all major linux distros (you just need to search for the proper packages included with the distro), if you are tempted on making/configuring/installing things from source or from upstream (=the original author's sites), you know you're doing something wrong, go back to the package manager and take a look again (or ask here ).