tabbed is a simple tabbed X window container.
In order to build tabbed you need the Xlib header files.
Edit config.mk to match your local setup (tabbed is installed into the /usr/local namespace by default). I have already set it to Ubuntu's default locations.
Afterwards enter the following command to build and install tabbed (assuming you're using Ubuntu/Debian):
sudo checkinstall make clean install
See the man page for details.