[enyc]

Dear all;

just like python2 has now been deprecated and removed from debian/ubuntu and most linux distros; it seems the time has come (overdue?) for GTK2 to go.

Per: https://lists.debian...1/msg00090.html
I understand it is very likely (although maybe not certain) Debian 14(Forky) will release without GTK2 at all; in any case lots of distributions going that way.

There are many bugs/projects afoot to get rid of remaining GTK2 dependencies.

EDuke32 builds optionally with GTK2, needed for the startup window. I get the impression this is important to many and will be missed on Linux...
Can we do an impact assessment and work out, how best to get rid of the dependency ?
It may not be that hard to migrate the code to use gtk3 base instead; indeed if I am back into some programming learning I may be willing to have a go some day.

I note there is actually quite a helpful guide here :-
https://docs.gtk.org...ating-2to3.html

However, I wanted to heads up on the issue promptly as this is going to be a rapidly developing problem now.
Hope that helps;

[https://devuanusers.com/th]

Hey there!
No need to drop support for GTK2 mate

I'm the lead developer of gtk2-ng. A fork for gtk2 with tons of bugfixes, modernisations and improvements like an icon view mode for the file chooser.
You can find the repo here
https://git.devuan.o...onratte/gtk2-ng

Right now I'm getting rid of the last compiler warnings. Afterwards I'm going to add more features for the file chooser like lazy loading and asynchronous thumbnailing.
I also want to reach feature parity between the x11 and win32 backends. Then I'm going to add support for smooth scrolling, HiDPI and touch support.

There's a good chance that Debian 14 won't drop gtk2 as their graphical installer still uses it and they didn't port it yet. I'm also going to convince Ardour to switch to our fork after implementing the features I named above so Debian 14 has to offer gtk2 libraries anyways.

Fun fact: GTK3 will probably be depcrecated before GTK2 now, as they already want developers to migrate from GTK3 to GTK4 now.


This is still work in progress, but according to the lead developer of Basilisk browser gtk2-ng is already much faster than vanilla gtk2
source: https://forum.palemo...=33365&start=20

We're also going to improve the build system by for Windows users soon. Tests are already being done.

[enyc]

timestamp=, on 11 May 2026 - 12:50 PM, said:

I'm the lead developer of gtk2-ng. A fork for gtk2 with tons of bugfixes, modernisations and improvements like an icon view mode for the file chooser.
https://git.devuan.o...onratte/gtk2-ng
Right now I'm getting rid of the last compiler warnings. Afterwards I'm going to add more features for the file chooser like lazy loading and asynchronous thumbnailing.

Before going too far on 'feature creep'; please look to get your gtk2-ng stable and submitted into Debian [and thus of course Devuan] natively as well as Ardour and so-forth, so there is a credible possibility of it being wider-accepted and realistically something non-niche to rely upon for other software. I notice even Gnome2 successor MATE-Desktop has already migrated to GTK3, and from there GTK4 not a problem.

[https://devuanusers.com/th]

enyc, on 11 May 2026 - 01:29 PM, said:

Before going too far on 'feature creep'; please look to get your gtk2-ng stable and submitted into Debian [and thus of course Devuan] natively as well as Ardour and so-forth, so there is a credible possibility of it being wider-accepted and realistically something non-niche to rely upon for other software. I notice even Gnome2 successor MATE-Desktop has already migrated to GTK3, and from there GTK4 not a problem.

The feature creep is my decision and it's already stable. It's already in the AUR and has been adopted by Artix Linux.

Just make sure you don't preemtively port your software to a toolkit that's already deprecated (or rather will be deprecated soon)

Regarding Mate, yeah, porting it over to GTK3 was really unpopular. That's why we're going to backport it to GTK2