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OpenGL programming on Ubuntu (8.10 Intrepid)

Installing all dependencies

sudo aptitude install mesa-common-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev freeglut3-dev libglut3-dev

Mesa is an open-source implementation of the OpenGL spec.

NOTE: freeglut3-dev is only required if you wish to use GLUT for your creating your hosting windows and handling user input.

NOTE: (If you wish to use apt-get instead of aptitude, you will also need to specify freeglut3)

Compiling a simple OpenGL/GLUT test

Mesa uses pkg-config, but if you run pkg-config (pkg-config --cflags --libs gl), you’ll notice that it’s not really worth using as all it outputs is -lGL! So for probably for the first time ever; I have chosen to manually specify the build libraries in our compilation command:

gcc -o bin/program main.c -lGL -lGLU -lglut

Then you can create a file named main.c and use the following test program (obtained from the OpenGL redbook):

#include <GL/gl.h>
#include <GL/glut.h>

void display(void)
{
    glClear (GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);
    glColor3f (1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
    glBegin(GL_POLYGON);
        glVertex3f (0.25, 0.25, 0.0);
        glVertex3f (0.75, 0.25, 0.0);
        glVertex3f (0.75, 0.75, 0.0);
        glVertex3f (0.25, 0.75, 0.0);
    glEnd();
    glFlush ();
}

void init (void) 
{
    glClearColor (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0); // note this line is incorrect in the red-book
    glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION);
    glLoadIdentity();
    glOrtho(0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0, -1.0, 1.0);
}

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    glutInit(&argc, argv);
    glutInitDisplayMode (GLUT_SINGLE | GLUT_RGB);
    glutInitWindowSize (250, 250); 
    glutInitWindowPosition (100, 100);
    glutCreateWindow ("hello");
    init ();
    glutDisplayFunc(display); 
    glutMainLoop();
    return 0;
}