is there a way to run bitcoin-qt and point it to a local testnet?

Question

I'm running a small testnet locally with this project:

http://github.com/freewil/bitcoin-testnet-box

but I'm having trouble pointing bitcoin-qt to the blockchain that I created locally myself, so I have some data like this:

bitcoin-cli -datadir=1  getinfo
{    
    "version" : 90300,
    "protocolversion" : 70002,
    "walletversion" : 60000,
    "balance" : 0.00000000,
    "blocks" : 0,
    "timeoffset" : 0,
    "connections" : 1,
    "proxy" : "",
    "difficulty" : 0.00000000,
    "testnet" : false,
    "keypoololdest" : 1413617762,
    "keypoolsize" : 101,
    "paytxfee" : 0.00000000,
    "relayfee" : 0.00001000,
    "errors" : ""
}
bitcoin-cli -datadir=2  getinfo
{
    "version" : 90300,
    "protocolversion" : 70002,
    "walletversion" : 60000,
    "balance" : 0.00000000,
    "blocks" : 0,
    "timeoffset" : 0,
    "connections" : 1,
    "proxy" : "",
    "difficulty" : 0.00000000,
    "testnet" : false,
    "keypoololdest" : 1413617762,
    "keypoolsize" : 101,
    "paytxfee" : 0.00000000,
    "relayfee" : 0.00001000,
    "errors" : ""
}

and I want that to be the data, and the addresses that is picked up and incorporated by bitcoin-qt. I guess there should be some flags to facilitate this but everything I've tried so far always in unsuccessful- maybe someone on here knows or has some idea?

Answer 1

Looking at the Makefile

start: $(BITCOIND) $(B1) -daemon $(BITCOIND) $(B2) -daemon

start-gui: $(BITCOINGUI) $(B1) & $(BITCOINGUI) $(B2) &

so probably make start-gui will work for you

Answer 2

Use the -testnet option. This will run the daemon in testnet.