diff --git a/pkgs/applications/misc/rxvt_unicode/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/misc/rxvt_unicode/default.nix
index 57ce1f081801..2ae33a1eaa51 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/misc/rxvt_unicode/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/misc/rxvt_unicode/default.nix
@@ -47,11 +47,11 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation (rec {
       configureFlags="--with-terminfo=$terminfo/share/terminfo --enable-256-color ${if perlSupport then "--enable-perl" else "--disable-perl"} ${if unicode3Support then "--enable-unicode3" else "--disable-unicode3"}";
       export TERMINFO=$terminfo/share/terminfo # without this the terminfo won't be compiled by tic, see man tic
       NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE="$NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE -I${freetype.dev}/include/freetype2"
-      NIX_LDFLAGS="$NIX_LDFLAGS -lfontconfig -lXrender "
+      NIX_LDFLAGS="$NIX_LDFLAGS -lfontconfig -lXrender -lpthread "
     ''
     # make urxvt find its perl file lib/perl5/site_perl is added to PERL5LIB automatically
     + stdenv.lib.optionalString perlSupport ''
-      mkdir -p $(dirname ${perl.libPrefix})
+      mkdir -p $out/$(dirname ${perl.libPrefix})
       ln -s $out/lib/urxvt $out/${perl.libPrefix}
     '';