Debian removes FPC/Lazarus

[marcov]

as we have no control over the Debian folks, and is seems certain they will not make any exceptions, it does not matter how anyone votes. they (Debian) will not make an exception, and we can all 'vote' until we go blue in the face.

So neither will we change anything during a minor release cycle, since that would jeopardise stability. Probably it will end up as third party debs as Zvoni seems to suggest.

And big change even for main that are is doubtful. So then we are back at the standoff that has been happening for over an year now. But at least the positions are clear to everybody now

Keep opening those tickets on the debian site and voting them up till they see the light

[dsiders]

The question I keep asking myself is why on earth do we have these files managed in FPC ?  They clearly belong in LCL. But interesting, there are also gtk1 files there 

I would imagine that's a dependency for the text mode IDE provided in FPC.... and that doesn't depend on LCL.

[dbannon]

OK, here is what I found. And its definitely not what I expected (but probably what Marcov was trying to tell me all along).  FPC can be built on a system that does NOT have gtk2 installed. That does include the packages/gtk2 units.

I built a headless Trixie, added only libc6-dev, vim and make. Installed the sourceforge version of FPC322 from Lazarus repo (needing a deb). Then put fpc324rc1 source in a dir, and ran

Code: Bash  [Select][+][-]

1. make clean
2. make all

The attached image (sorry, large) shows the newly created .ppu and .o files in packages/gtk2 and it shows there is no sign of gtk2 on the system.

Note : doing this experiment using using the Debian Repo fpc322 is pointless, it installs gtk2 as a dependency.

So, this negates my argument that 'we' need restructure fpc and Lazarus, it really is problem introduced by Debian adding gtk2 as a [ build | runtime ] dependency.

(We still have a problem with Lazarus, I will investigate further but its clear that by shipping gtk2 Lazarus binaries from SourceForge we send the message that its a gtk2 app.)

Davo

[ccrause]

I did not follow the original discussions prior to this thread, here are some relevant links for interest (I noticed a lot of the same things are being repeated in this discussion):

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=967348
https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/source/-/issues/39989

One comment by Abou is that fpc itself does not depend on GTK2 and users of the GTK2 fpc package will only require the GTK2 libraries at link time, so there is no need to mark fpc as dependent on the GTK package.

The GTK2 package shipped with fpc is no different in its dependencies compared to other wrapper packages such as dbus, libpipewire or libusb, all of which also statically links to external libraries.  None of the other fpc packages are marked as required dependencies on external libraries, so why is the external dependency on GTK2 a required dependency?

The Debian suggestion of replacing the GTK2 unit with GTK3 is missing the point. Even if fpc shipped with a GTK3 package, for legacy reasons the GTK2 package should still be provided for those fpc users currently using it.

[dbannon]

Ah, I had not spotted that Abou stated gtk2 is not necessary. I was a but worried that he was not involved, he does much of the packaging and is usually pretty active.

More power to his strong right arm !

Anyway, I have posted a summary of my suggestion -
https://alioth-lists.debian.net/pipermail/pkg-pascal-devel/Week-of-Mon-20260202/006145.html

Davo

PS an amusing aside : gtk1 is also present there in packages, good luck with getting it going. And, yes, building the compiler does generate the necssary binary files !

[Thaddy]

@dbannon
It is not only gtk1/2, but also X itself that is endangered in the near future. After all the trend is towards Wayland as compositor. This is not yet urgent but is only a couple of releases away.
All these go together: X, Wayland, GTK < 3.

[zeljko]

Qt6 is all we have for wayland, and that can work without xlib deps (of course, at some point must remove complete x11 deps from lcl qt6). I know that many ppl dislike qt because of licensing and because of C bindings in the middle, but that is the only way to go atm, qt6 is pretty stable and should be setted as default for next major release.

[cdbc]

Hi
@zeljko: Before we push Qt6, could you please have a look at this screenshot attached...
I get this when I run apps in the debugger, both 4.4 & trunk/main, as well as when I run the apps from commandline...?!?
...Sometimes it also sports a "Segment Fault" when run without debug-info...
Regards Benny

[zeljko]

Better open an issue about it and write all details you know about it.

[dbannon]

I switched my app from gtk2 to Qt5 in Debian some two years ago. But I still provide downloadable packages. gtk2 downloads outnumber Qt5 or Qt6 about 3:1.

I still advise users of newer operating systems to use Qt6.

I guess I hope Wayland will fix some of its bugs, particularly the one related to initial window placement, thats a real pain. But Mate DE is not Wayland based yet ....

I think Lazarus needs to be shipped with Qt6, maybe GTK3 will improve before Forky is released but Qt6 works now !

Davo 

[dsiders]

I guess I hope Wayland will fix some of its bugs, particularly the one related to initial window placement, thats a real pain.

Wayland does not consider that a bug. They say it's the responsibility of the compositor... and not part of the Wayland design, That's why Wayland is brain-dead.

I think Lazarus needs to be shipped with Qt6...

Good luck with that.

..maybe GTK3 will improve before Forky is released...

GTK3 was introduced 15 years ago. If it doesn't work now, it's not likely that it ever will. And even if it did, it's on the verge of becoming legacy too. GTK4 has been out for 5+ years.

[PascalDragon]

The easy solution of removing that package <src>packages/gtk2 from FPC would make FPC acceptable to Debian (I think) but it will break Lazarus.

FPC also contains a package for GTK1 of which the libraries have been removed from Debian for quite some time already, so clearly Debian is capable of not adding dependencies if they don't need to. So, no, we will not remove the GTK2 units. It's on Debian to just remove the dependency and to enforce Qt6 for Lazarus. They don't shy away from other downstream changes if they're necessary after all.

[dbannon]

The easy solution of removing that package <src>packages/gtk2 from FPC would make FPC acceptable to Debian (I think) but it will break Lazarus.

FPC also contains a package for GTK1 of which the libraries have been removed from Debian for quite some time already, so clearly Debian is capable of not adding dependencies if they don't need to. So, no, we will not remove the GTK2 units. It's on Debian to just remove the dependency and to enforce Qt6 for Lazarus. They don't shy away from other downstream changes if they're necessary after all.

This was all noted further back up this thread Pascal Dragon.

Davo

[dbannon]

GTK3 was introduced 15 years ago. If it doesn't work now, it's not likely that it ever will. And even if it did, it's on the verge of becoming legacy too. GTK4 has been out for 5+ years.

Well, given that GTK3 went from totally unusable to pretty close in a short time a few months ago, I suspect it might be just a case of someone (eg zelko) having some free time. I love Qt5/6 but recognize that a GTK* solution would be more popular with the general community.

But, right now gtk3 is not ready, IMHO Qt6 is ! And we need to be seen solving this problem.

Davo

[MarkMLl]

This is not my fight any more, for reasons that have been discussed elsewhere,  and I prefer to keep my head down.

Keep opening those tickets on the debian site and voting them up till they see the light

I put it to you (Marco) that antagonising the Debian project will not be in the interest of the FPC and Lazarus communities, and will risk marginalising Pascal to an even greater extent than is current.

However, I also note that a number of other projects are unhappy about the direction that Debian and other distreaux are moving, in particular their deprecation of X11 (in favour of Wayland) which obviously has a bearing on things like gtk.

As a specific example I quote from the KiCad blog:

We try to be pragmatic. We support what works, we document what doesn’t, and we focus our development efforts where they’ll have most benefit for our users. We will adjust our position as Wayland improves, but we won’t compromise the reliability and functionality of KiCad.

For now, if you need to use KiCad on Linux, use X11.

There is substantially more detail at https://www.kicad.org/blog/2025/06/KiCad-and-Wayland-Support/ and I suggest that it is worth reading.

Now, something like KiCad is obviously an important-enough application program that a user or group of users could shape their operating system choice entirely around its requirements.

FPC/Lazarus developers could make a similar choice, although I suggest that the FPC/Lazarus projects would be on thin ice demanding that they make that choice. However, that would leave the thorny issue of the end-users on whose behalf those developers were working.

The bottom line is that Pascal is one of the "Grand Old Languages" and deserves respect because of the concepts of strong types etc. that it introduced, even if its use is declining at some greater or lesser rate.

I suggest that it is the responsibility of the FPC maintainers to not do anything that accelerates that decline.

MarkMLl