Welcome to Stack Overflow, the land of the non-answer.
"You are not doing it right, is the problem"
"Do this", with no explanation. Doesn't work.
The cmake answer is ok, but I don't really want to use cmake for the sole purpose of making a single library import.
--- end of roast, my answer:
As per https://answers.opencv.org/question/225224/opencvcvh-not-found/
OpenCV 4 discontinued the C-API in favor of the C++ one, apparently.
So you should install the latest version of OpenCV 3. This can be done using platform specific installer listed below:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/files/3.4.10/
For Linux specifically, you want this file from the ones in the link above.
Download and extract it.
Then based on these instructions to install it,
- Make a directory, I called my opencv-install and put the extracted folder in it.
opencv-install/opencv-opencv-25a1900
cd opencv-install
rm opencv-opencv-25a1900/CMakeCache.txtls
cmake opencv-opencv-25a1900
make
sudo make install # global install
Then change your import to #include "opencv/cv.h"
Well how about that, you still needed cmake, but at least you don't have to make your project a "cmake project". In fact, if someone else with the same operating system has already done up to step 5, you can simply use their build !
For Linux beginners (requires Debian-base, cmake not needed)
As a little courtesy, and to put my "money" where my "mouth" is, I will provide to you my own build. Understand that using someone else's build assumes a bit more trust than compiling it yourself. I know when I first start with C/Linux compiling OS projects can be kind of daunting so.... here you go! It is for For Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) x86_64. I think this means it works on Ubuntu, and maybe other OSes that use apt. If you try it and it doesn't work, you should try a different build or make one yourself by starting at step one above.