How to install OpenGL in Ubuntu in C++?

What Is OpenGL?

OpenGL is a Graphics rendering API which is operating system independent, window system independent and has high-quality color images composed of geometric and image primitives. OpenGL APIs can use following -

1. GL
   • OpenGL API implementation (http://www.opengl.org)
2. GLU
   • OpenGL Utility
3. Glut
   • GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) – Glut is portable windowing API and it is not officially part of OpenGL.
   • OpenGL Utility Toolkit (http://www.opengl.org/resources/libraries/glut/)
4. FLTK
   • FlashLight ToolKit (http://www.fltk.org/)
5. GLEW

Now lets see how to install OpenGL in Ubuntu.

Now because GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) depends upon OpenGL and a number of other related libraries, if we install GLUT then OpenGL will be automatically be installed.

First update the repository using the given command

 $ sudo apt-get update 

Run the following command to install OpenGL.

 $ sudo apt-get install libglu1-mesa-dev freeglut3-dev mesa-common-dev 

Now to test if OpenGL libraries are working fine on our Linux machine, we will create a C++ program and test it.

So create a following C++ Program.

 #include <GL/glut.h>  void displayMe(void) { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); glBegin(GL_POLYGON); glVertex3f(0.5, 0.0, 0.5); glVertex3f(0.5, 0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(0.0, 0.5, 0.0); glVertex3f(0.0, 0.0, 0.5); glEnd(); glFlush(); } int main(int argc, char** argv) { glutInit(&argc, argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_SINGLE); glutInitWindowSize(400, 300); glutInitWindowPosition(100, 100); glutCreateWindow("Hello world!"); glutDisplayFunc(displayMe); glutMainLoop(); return 0; } 

Now give the command below to compile your code.

 $ g++ main.cpp -o firstOpenGlApp -lglut -lGLU -lGL 

Now run your OpenGl program with following command

 $ ./firstOpenGlApp 

You will see something like this on your screen if everythings went well.