I know that there are many questions like this, but i really want to learn opengl and im confused about all these toolkits glut, sdl ...
The question is which should i learn, and i will be happy if you post some tutorials about them. Also from which one of them i can make level editors, and stuff like that.
Im using ubuntu, linux
OpenGL is just a graphics API.
GLUT is a window manager for OpenGL. It simplifies the process of creating an OpenGL window (or more than one), and is also portable (platform independent). However it is quite old, and you should only use for learning, since it makes it easier to get to the part of drawing things on screen.
An alternative to GLUT is FreeGLUT, which i think is very similar, but more recent.
SDL provides more than just a window manager, it provides audio playback, input, font rendering, etc. I don't really use it, but i think it's quite nice if you are just starting.
There are others, like SFML, Allegro, etc.
I can't tell you much about these, because i have no experience on them, but i'm sure others can help you on that.
Also, just checking, but if you don't know a programming language yet, you may want tolearn one before attempting to learn OpenGL (again, just checking, and it never hurts to brush up the knowledge)
Hope it helps.
i think alot of people use freeglut, from what i understand, glut support was cut a while ago and doesnt support modern features, while freeglut has all the features of glut, and is still updated.
i'm not sure what this means feature-wise ( i did when i switched from glut to freeglut )
i don't have any experience with SDL, though i much prefer glut/freeglut over allegro, though i think allegro has more stuff for game making pre-made, like image loading/drawing and sound loading/drawing, not too sure though.
From what I hear sdl is the most widely used. I'm using freeGLUT right now it's pretty good, and lots of tutorials cover it.
SFML is object oriented which the others are not. However its mostly meant to be a 2d platform and can get in the way if you wish to use it for a openGL window.
In order to get access to the openGL extensions use GLEW, its the most common, there are others like it but this one is what most the tuts use.
Also you will probably want a 3d math library glm will solve that problem for you.
Tutorials for modern openGL in order of my favs.
http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/
http://www.arcsynthesis.org/gltut/index.html
http://openglbook.com/the-book/preface-what-is-opengl/
and an upcoming book you may want to buy
My current favorite for C/C++ coding is glfw (http://www.glfw.org/). It supports OpenGL > 3.0 out of the box without any complications, unlike SFML or SDL.
I'm also planning on looking at this when I get a chance: http://oglplus.org/
