$ pkg-config --libs dbus-1 --cflags -I/usr/include/dbus-1.0 -I/usr/lib64/dbus-1.0/include -I/usr/include/elogind -ldbus-1 That's generating the correct includes, however my program still doesn't find <dbus/dbus.h>. I've tried putting it on the command line: cc -o $@ $(pkg-config --libs dbus-1 --cflags) $+ in the makefile & as CFLAGS+=$(pkg-config --libs dbus-1 --cflags) but still fails to find the include when compiling.