[SOLVED] Installing SDL2 Development version on Ubuntu Linux

Issue

I am trying to install SDL2 on Linux Ubuntu 18.04. However there are 2 types of packages available on the repository, the 'normal' library version and the development files version.

libsdl2-2.0-0/bionic-updates,bionic-security 2.0.8+dfsg1-1ubuntu1.18.04.4 amd64
  Simple DirectMedia Layer

libsdl2-dev/bionic-updates,bionic-security 2.0.8+dfsg1-1ubuntu1.18.04.4 amd64
  Simple DirectMedia Layer development files

What I am asking is are there differences between the two version for developing application/game using SDL2 and which one should I install if I am just starting to learn SDL2?

Solution

Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions) often divide up packages this way: the first package contains libraries and executables needed to run something compiled with the package (SDL2 in this case), the dev packages contains the headers, additional libraries or config files needed to compile a program with package. You want to install both; normally installing the dev version of the package will pull in the other as a dependency.

Answered By - astrosnapper