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kasabali

Bigger issue here is they're removing everything that depends on gtk2.

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This has been reported here but got not enough attention:

"Debian GNOME team announces intent to remove GTK 2 in Debian 14" (08.01.2026)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46548257

P.S. Still hope GNOME maintainers let other volunteers maintain GTK 2.

> P.S. Still hope GNOME maintainers let other volunteers maintain GTK 2.

They already said this is fine: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2026/01/msg00146.html

Well that's a bummer. There's a whole generation of barely-if-at-all-maintained but still perfectly working utils that will probably be forever lost to obscurity with that.

Recently I wish Debian was more Debian.

With the possible exception of Hexchat, I'd wager any such tools were already lost to obscurity.

Does gtk2 still have Debian maintainers? Whatever is in Debian's official repository is effectively endorsed by Debian. If they don't have enough capacity it's wiser to drop support than to sign off on something of unknown quality.

I hate losing access to software just because it is "unmaintained". If module is "endorsed" now, since it is included in current version, and there is no maintenance, so no changes made to it, why is it suddenly not good enough to "endorse" in the future? No, security issues do not count as they don't magically appear, either they are in there now and debian is fine with distributing "insecure" code or they don't matter. Debian is fine with shipping broken version of software for years as long as they consider it "stable" so why drop working "stable" software just because no one is making changes to it?

Losing access or losing convenient access that other people do work to maintain for you?

the source is still there...

It's not only about security (although that's extremely important) but also making the changes necessary to adapt to the changing ecosystem. Unmaintained means there is nobody responsible, nobody you can even contact to make the changes needed. If there is anyone, even an aging OS developer as in the case of many packages, it's so much better than none.

- GTK2 is only one of the supported widget sets for Lazarus. It supports Qt5 & 6 too. I feel Lazarus should switch to Qt5 or 6 until GTK3 is mature.

- Hexchat IRC client is another popular application that is still stuck with GTK2.

Considering we're on GTK 4, I think GTK 3 is as mature as it's gonna get.

Mature ? I would say obsolete. Just wait for GTK5 or GTK6.

It seems no distro is safe from deletionists.

You can step up and be the maintainer of GTK2 (or anything else that would keep the 'deletionists' at bay) any time you want. Go on...I'm sure you have unlimited time and resources like all the other Debian maintainers.

Nonsense. You just need to make building the gtk2 unit optional, so that the distros can still build it. Almost no one needs gtk2, just Lazarus. Usually debian maintainers are happy to patch the build system to do that. They got a bad one.

The harder part is to upgrade Lazarus to qt6. Until that happens, Lazarus needs to be shipped as snap, flatpack or appimage with the gtk2 so's.

Until that happens

Exactly. "Let me explain how some else needs to do this thing, and how easy it is, and how that someone else needs to get right on that for my convenience". Because you're here to condescend, not to actually do anything.

This doesn't answer the mail: https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Qt6_Interface

The maintainer driving this in Debian explicitly said:

> That being said I would not object if someone wants to take over the maintenance of GTK2, though I believe keeping it for beyond duke is beating a dead horse.

Source: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2026/01/msg00146.html

If you really need things others are no longer willing to maintain, then it’s time to learn how to help yourself.

The Nix or Guix package managers are likely your easiest bet. See

https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Lazarus

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/developmen...

I'm sure they can be easily ported to GTK3, GTK4 and then GTK5 /s

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