I was unsuccessful also with SDL 1.2, that I have to give up a few years ago, I couldn't even draw my first texture. But SDL 2 is a better modern conception. The main benefits are the easy low level cross-platform access to everything you need to make a game. But will not find extra features that usually comes with game engines, just the basic for a 2D game, if you need 3D, SDL2 can provide an OpenGL context.
Read more here: https://wiki.libsdl.org/MigrationGuide