How to get Qt 5.0 working with Qt Creator 2.5.2?

Question

I have just downloaded the source code for Qt 5.0 and compiled it on Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit. Running sudo make install seems to have copied the files to /usr/local/Qt-5.0.0:

So far so good. But when I fire up Qt Creator 2.5.2 and try to point it to the new build, I get an unusual error: The default mkspec symlink is broken.

What could possibly cause this sort of error? All of the symlinks under /usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/mkspecs are valid. The output of qmake -query is as follows:

QT_SYSROOT:
QT_INSTALL_PREFIX:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0
QT_INSTALL_ARCHDATA:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0
QT_INSTALL_DATA:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0
QT_INSTALL_DOCS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/doc
QT_INSTALL_HEADERS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/include
QT_INSTALL_LIBS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/lib
QT_INSTALL_LIBEXECS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/libexec
QT_INSTALL_BINS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/bin
QT_INSTALL_TESTS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/tests
QT_INSTALL_PLUGINS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/plugins
QT_INSTALL_IMPORTS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/imports
QT_INSTALL_QML:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/qml
QT_INSTALL_TRANSLATIONS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/translations
QT_INSTALL_CONFIGURATION:/etc/xdg
QT_INSTALL_EXAMPLES:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/examples
QT_INSTALL_DEMOS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/examples
QT_HOST_PREFIX:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0
QT_HOST_DATA:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0
QT_HOST_BINS:/usr/local/Qt-5.0.0/bin
QMAKE_SPEC:linux-g++-64
QMAKE_XSPEC:linux-g++-64
QMAKE_VERSION:3.0
QT_VERSION:5.0.0

I should also point out that I do not have the Qt 4.x development files installed on this machine:

nathan@nathan-ubuntu:~$ dpkg -l | grep qt4
ii  libqt4-dbus:amd64                         4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 D-Bus module
ii  libqt4-declarative:amd64                  4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 Declarative module
ii  libqt4-designer:amd64                     4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 designer module
ii  libqt4-help:amd64                         4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 help module
ii  libqt4-network:amd64                      4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 network module
rc  libqt4-opengl:amd64                       4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 OpenGL module
rc  libqt4-qt3support:amd64                   4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 3 compatibility library for Qt 4
ii  libqt4-script:amd64                       4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 script module
ii  libqt4-scripttools:amd64                  4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 script tools module
ii  libqt4-sql:amd64                          4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 SQL module
ii  libqt4-sql-sqlite:amd64                   4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 SQLite 3 database driver
ii  libqt4-svg:amd64                          4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 SVG module
ii  libqt4-test:amd64                         4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 test module
ii  libqt4-xml:amd64                          4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 XML module
ii  libqt4-xmlpatterns:amd64                  4:4.8.3+dfsg-0ubuntu3                      amd64        Qt 4 XML patterns module
ii  python-qt4                                4.9.3-4                                    amd64        Python bindings for Qt4
ii  python-qt4-dbus                           4.9.3-4                                    amd64        D-Bus Support for PyQt4

Answer 1

You can not make Qt 5 work with Qt Creator prior to version 2.6.1. The patchlevel is important, version 2.6.0 will not work for the final.

Qt 5 is sufficiently different from Qt 4 with its new modules, library names and qmake to require quite a few changes all over the place to get it supported.

Answer 2

After upgrading to Qt Creator 2.6.1, the problem went away.

The exact steps for installing v2.6.1 went something like this:

1. Grab the binary installer from here:

   • 32-bit Linux Installer
   • 64-bit Linux Installer

2. After you have downloaded the file, change the permissions to 755 with chmod:

   chmod 755 qt-creator-linux-*-opensource-2.6.1.bin
   

3. Run the installer as root:

   sudo ./qt-creator-linux-*-opensource-2.6.1.bin
   

4. Leave all of the installation settings at their defaults and finish the installation.

5. Launch the application through your desktop environment's dash or equivalent.