#967317 doublecmd: depends on deprecated GTK 2

#967317#5
Date:
2020-08-04 10:36:14 UTC
From:
To:
This package has Build-Depends on GTK 2 (libgtk2.0-dev), or produces
binary packages with a Depends on GTK 2.

GTK 2 was superseded by GTK 3 in 2011 (see
<https://bugs.debian.org/947713>). It no longer receives any significant
upstream maintenance, and in particular does not get feature development
for new features like UI scaling on high-pixel-density displays (HiDPI)
and native Wayland support. GTK 3 is in maintenance mode and GTK 4 is
approaching release, so it seems like a good time to be thinking about
minimizing the amount of GTK 2 in the archive.

GTK 2 is used by some important productivity applications like GIMP, and
has also historically been a popular UI toolkit for proprietary software
that we can't change, so perhaps removing GTK 2 from Debian will never be
feasible. However, it has reached the point where a dependency on it is
a bug - not a release-critical bug, and not a bug that can necessarily
be fixed quickly, but a piece of technical debt that maintainers should
be aware of.

A porting guide is provided in the GTK 3 documentation:
https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/migrating.html

Some libraries (for example libgtkspell0) expose GTK as part of their
API/ABI, in which case removing the deprecated dependency requires
breaking API/ABI. For these libraries, in many cases there will already
be a corresponding GTK 3 version (for example libgtkspell3-3-0), in which
case the GTK 2-based library should probably be deprecated or removed
itself. If there is no GTK 3 equivalent, of a GTK 2-based library,
maintainers should talk to the dependent library's upstream developers
about whether the dependent library should break API/ABI and switch
to GTK 3, or whether the dependent library should itself be deprecated
or removed.

A few packages extend GTK 2 by providing plugins (theme engines, input
methods, etc.) or themes, for example ibus and mate-themes. If these
packages deliberately support GTK 2 even though it is deprecated, and
they also support GTK 3, then it is appropriate to mark this mass-filed
bug as wontfix for now. I have tried to exclude these packages from
the mass-bug-filing, but I probably missed some of them.

Regards,
    smcv

#967317#14
Date:
2023-09-20 13:27:26 UTC
From:
To:
Please drop doublecmd-gtk or make it a transitional package to doublecmd-qt.
#967317#23
Date:
2023-09-24 14:03:44 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Bastian

I'd rather not do that.  doublecmd-qt does not integrate well with the
default GNOME desktop.
Also, per popcon [1], doublecmd-gtk has almost four times as many
users as doublecmd-qt.

I believe this should be fixed in lazarus, and lazarus should migrate
from gtk2 -> gtk3 with little or no changes required to applications,
as was done with qt4 -> qt5.

Regards
Graham


[1] https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=doublecmd

#967317#32
Date:
2026-01-08 01:18:00 UTC
From:
To:
As announced [1], we are trying to remove gtk2 from forky. Therefore,
I am raising the severity of this issue.

[1] https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2026/01/msg00090.html

On behalf of the Debian GNOME team,
Jeremy Bícha

#967317#39
Date:
2026-02-05 16:55:47 UTC
From:
To:
part and be done with it.
#967317#46
Date:
2026-02-11 00:04:17 UTC
From:
To:
Please find a patch attached that drops the doublecmd-gtk package.
#967317#53
Date:
2026-03-14 22:26:26 UTC
From:
To:
Please note that lcl-gtk2 was replaced with lcl-gtk3.
So you can tweak this source package to build with gtk3 now.