Re: Remove gtk2 for forky?

On Mon, 27 Oct 2025 10:52, Simon McVittie <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sun, 26 Oct 2025 at 20:18:32 -0400, Jeremy Bícha wrote:
>>I believe the only key package is the debian-installer which I think
>>we can figure out this development cycle.
>
>Converting d-i to (a sensible threading model, and then) GTK 3 continues 
>to be something I'm sporadically working on. Until that is something 
>that the d-i team could realistically review and merge, I don't think 
>removing GTK 2 is feasible, because the graphical installer is a 
>requirement for Debian's support for languages that aren't feasible to 
>implement on the Linux console (for example Arabic).
>
>(And as long as we need GTK 2's udebs, I would strongly prefer to 
>continue to have its .deb as well, so that it's possible to test it 
>without resorting to doing a whole d-i build.)
>
Do you have a working tree for d-i somewhere? Maybe I can spend some 
time during the holidays on this. I concur the we should not remove gtk2 
unless d-i is fully ported.
>Starting to raise more of the "relies on GTK 2" bugs to serious could 
>make sense, particularly if you can point to specific functionality 
>that is expected in 2025 applications but cannot be provided by GTK 2. 
>But I predict that some Debian contributors will be vociferously 
>opposed to its removal and I don't have the spoons to fight them over 
>this.
Most applications that are not ported yet are kinda on lifesupport 
anyway IMO. Of course we should not strive to break packages *right 
now*,
but GTK2 is EOL since 2020 and I doubt anything critical (save d-i) 
relies on it.

best,

werdahias