2/25/2026 at 10:02:37 AM
by mariuz
2/25/2026 at 1:22:53 PM
If you plough through the first pages so far as I can tell it seems like actually it won't be removed.Certainly not FPC, because the hard dependency on GTK2 was a misunderstanding.
For Lazarus it seems like dependency on GTK2 is considered a bug and not a fundamental incompatibility, because there are too many GTK2 applications to completely remove it from Debian.
by jonp888
2/25/2026 at 11:50:08 AM
Bigger issue here is they're removing everything that depends on gtk2.by kasabali
2/25/2026 at 12:09:50 PM
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.
by pamcake
2/25/2026 at 2:10:19 PM
With the possible exception of Hexchat, I'd wager any such tools were already lost to obscurity.by stonogo
2/25/2026 at 12:28:35 PM
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.by curt15
2/25/2026 at 1:13:00 PM
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.
by kvemkon
2/25/2026 at 12:42:47 PM
- 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.
by canistel
2/25/2026 at 4:10:13 PM
Considering we're on GTK 4, I think GTK 3 is as mature as it's gonna get.by presbyterian
2/25/2026 at 8:19:57 PM
Mature ? I would say obsolete. Just wait for GTK5 or GTK6.by hulitu
2/25/2026 at 2:18:22 PM
It seems no distro is safe from deletionists.by account42
2/26/2026 at 12:33:47 AM
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.by kjs3
2/25/2026 at 12:21:02 PM
That's the curse on the Unix world. At least FreeBSD, NetBSD (OpenBSD not by design, but that's understandable because of security) have their compat libraries on plus some of them (even GTK1) in their ports. On 9front, I just adapted Russ Cox' Xword (some crossword player for XWord files, it has a converter from Across Lite Puz files to Xword) for modern times, barely a few lines changes in some drawing function for software made for Plan9 4ed or close.PD: Guix can do the same as fbsd and nbsd because, well, setting up an isolated environment with time-bound tools it's basically what Guix was born for, reproducibility. Scientific repo for a paper must be run point to point as we had a Slackware setup with Slackbuilds in 2007? That's the point of Guix. You would say... docker. But docker it's overkill.
by anthk
2/25/2026 at 1:25:52 PM
Didn't FreeBSD recently dropped their 32 bits x86 version ? At some point every open source OS will remove the parts for which no one is willing to put the work on maintaining it.by AlexeyBrin
2/25/2026 at 6:11:59 PM
NetBSD still supports 32 bit, and VAX 780 from 1979. Best OS ever, highest quality and probability.by iberator
2/25/2026 at 9:38:36 PM
OpenBSD it's much easier to setup than NetBSD, on user friendlyness obsd beats nbsd, but as you said nbsd it's better on portability, I can literally run NetBSD 10.1 under simh/vax running under... 9front. No X, because the emulated ethernet in the port of simh here just simulates nat with no option to bind it outside, although I didn't test it further. But for sure it runs at decent speeds, almost like an emulated Pentium 90, enough to run Slashem under vt(1) (vt100/220 emulator for 9front).by anthk