{"id":153586,"date":"2026-01-15T17:12:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/blog\/novosti-interneta\/v-debian-14-namereny-prekratit-postavku-gtk2"},"modified":"2026-01-15T17:12:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:12:03","slug":"v-debian-14-namereny-prekratit-postavku-gtk2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/en\/blog\/news\/v-debian-14-namereny-prekratit-postavku-gtk2","title":{"rendered":"Debian 14 plans to cease the provision of GTK2.","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
The Debian team responsible for GNOME packages plans not to include the GTK2 toolkit in the upcoming Debian 14 distribution, expected to be released in the summer of 2027. The developers of the GTK project stopped supporting GTK2 over five years ago, and maintaining the abandoned GTK2 in the main repository has become problematic. Notable distributions that have already stopped delivering GTK2 include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16, openSUSE 16, and Arch Linux. Debian is advised to follow their example. <\/p>\n
Among the notable projects tied to GTK2, GIMP remained until recently, but starting with GIMP 3.0, this graphic editor has been ported to GTK3. GTK is also used in the popular audio editor Ardour, but this project does not depend on external libraries and supports its own fork of GTK2 \u2014 YTK. <\/p>\n
The most serious problem blocking the removal of GTK2 is that GTK2 is still used in the graphical installer of Debian. There are about 150 packages in the Debian repository that have dependencies on GTK2, and if GTK2 is discontinued, these packages will have to be removed, as they are largely unmaintained and their porting to GTK3 is unlikely. <\/p>\n
Many of these packages have active users who are not willing to switch to other programs. There are also developers advocating for the continued support of GTK2 in Debian and considering the reasons for its removal to be unfounded. For example, the mention that GTK3 was released 15 years ago is meaningless since GTK3 does not replace GTK2, just as GTK4 does not replace GTK3. <\/p>\n
Arguments questioning such claims, like the lack of HiDPI and Wayland support in GTK2, are noted as irrelevant since they are not needed, and users are satisfied. Comparing with Arch Linux, where GTK2 is excluded from the main repository but available unofficially, is also deemed inappropriate. During the discussion, a question was raised about how GTK2 is worse than GCC 3.3, which was provided for over 20 years, up until Debian 12, out of which 16 years were solely for offering libstdc++5 for outdated executables. <\/p>\n
Supporters of the removal of GTK2 cite the inability to ensure the security of the package as one reason, while opponents argue that the security of GTK2 in Debian has not concerned many, and the last error marked as a vulnerability dates back to 2015. <\/p>\n
Currently, there is a discussion on ways to maintain support for applications dependent on GTK2 in the distribution. One suggestion is to move GTK2 and related applications to a separate unofficial repository. Ideas also include creating a wrapper that translates the GTK2 API to GTK3, and transitioning to the delivery of a GTK2 fork from the Ardour project. Additionally, it is proposed not to remove the packages immediately but to mark them as 'orphaned', hoping that someone will find interest in continuing their maintenance. <\/p>\n
Among the popular packages dependent on GTK2: <\/p>\n