gdebi-gtk launches immediately. It is a Python3 script, so I can not just "ldd" to see its dependencies. I do not think Ubutnu will see this as their problem, from their perspective GTK2 was deprecated a long time ago. The issue is that Lazarus is distributed as GTK2 and defaults to GTK2 for builds. The Lazarus QT5 widgetset seems very mature, so perhaps Debian users should be given the option of installing QT5 IDE. I can handle this myself, but I worry this will impact new Lazarus users and users of our tools.
I appreciate the updated web page that describes building the libqt5pas, and this is a great solution for Lazarus developers. However, I think this is a reach for most of our users, as it requires a tremendous number of development tools and libraries installed (e.g. Lazarus sources for the c bindings, C, QT5-dev, etc). Is it possible to make a simple deb file for the libqt5pas that will work on 16.04, 18.04 and not interact with other tools?
In a similar direction, from others experience it seems likely that this issue does not impact many varieties of Debian like XUbuntu, but it does impact a clean install on two different CPUs (new AMD, mature Intel). I also removed the NVidia graphics card from the Intel system, and the issue persists with the integrated Intel graphics card. My sense is this will be a common hurdle for future users.
I wonder if Lazarus does some calls to determine DPI, as the pause occurs after the "FormCreate" and "FormShow" events are triggered but before widgets appear on the Form. It seems like Lazarus apps are waiting for some information (DPI, fonts installed, etc) and eventually times out.