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brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 137  

Switching to GTK2 from GTK3 on Post-Beowulf Devuan Releases

Note that this is only intended for experienced users. Do not attempt otherwise.

Unhappy with the direction Xfce has been going since the 4.16 release (CSD and all), I've considered just going back to 4.12 (while staying on Daedalus), which I successfully pulled off by preferring Beowulf's repository for all my Xfce-related packages. The problem, however, is that some of them depend on GTK3 (as 4.12 has partial GTK3 support). What I then did was enable the archived repositories for Ascii and even Jessie, and I ensured that my Xfce would be completely unaffected if I decided to run sudo apt autoremove libgtk-3-0.

Another issue is that I had to use the Jessie versions of xfce4-terminal and xfce4-notifyd, as those were already depending on GTK3 as of Ascii. After successfully "downgrading" my packages accordingly, and seeing that Xfce has been purely GTK2-ized once more, I set a negative pinning on the packages to prevent them from being "upgraded". I only had to redo my Thunar configs (although I'm much happier just using SpaceFM as my file manager, even as a transparent overlay on my icon-less Xfce desktop) and set a script for my panel's CPU temperatures (with xfce4-genmon-plugin).

Going even further, I was able to get the GTK2 versions of GParted, GSmartControl, Meld, Gnumeric, Atril, Engrampa, FileZilla, Audacity, EasyTAG, Geany (although I mainly just use Leafpad), and AbiWord back, but some of those had to be done rather "dirtily" to get the results I sought (i.e. by enabling the archived repositories for Debian's Lenny, Squeeze, and Wheezy releases). It wasn't something I wanted to do, but I was able to resolve all dependencies rather carefully.

Maybe it's "Frankensteined" in a way, but I find the system just as functional as before (if not more so now), and I seldomly tinker with software nowadays. I simply wanted to get rid of GTK3 and its problems. Now, some programs I couldn't actually do that, namely with Firefox ESR, LibreWolf, Thunderbird (although I guess Sylpheed remains an option), Alacarte (because I like customizing my menus, and KDE's menu editor flat-out sucks), and Synaptic (which I keep around in case I don't feel like typing up command lines). I couldn't get the GTK2 version of NetworkManager's applet to install, so I'm using the Qt5 alternative in nm-tray.

Has anyone else tried this? I'd be curious as to a different solution from mine.

greenjeans

Member

Registered: 2017-04-07

Posts: 932  

Website

Re: Switching to GTK2 from GTK3 on Post-Beowulf Devuan Releases

For me, I still have fully functional ISO's of pure Jessie that are all GTK2, archive repo is still available but I have everything I want already, the only program that needed a modern version to work properly was the browser, so I use an appimage of FF. No frankensteining needed.

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s1mple

Member

Registered: 2023-11-13

Posts: 12  

Re: Switching to GTK2 from GTK3 on Post-Beowulf Devuan Releases

That's pretty cool.

brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 137  

Re: Switching to GTK2 from GTK3 on Post-Beowulf Devuan Releases

For a worthy RSS feed reader, I recommend using the last GTK2 version of Liferea, which is 1.8.7, but the last one Debian packaged is 1.8.6. The dependencies should be resolvable if using the standalone DEB from sometime in 2012 (the current Debian stable release at that time was Squeeze, but Wheezy was a year away from the testing freeze).

Anyway, Liferea is great, and it has some cool features, like managing different categories for your feeds, opening an item within the program (in a new tab, as if it were a browser), minimizing to a tray icon with notifications and total new feeds, and setting up proxy connections and what to use to download file enclosures (e.g. Mpv for videos, Leafpad for text files). It's a great tool that's still useful to this day.

Thanks to Liferea's exceeding pros, I no longer have a use for Newsboat, which was already freezing up at random and has Rust stains in its code...

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn

Member

Registered: 2023-11-27

Posts: 288  

Re: Switching to GTK2 from GTK3 on Post-Beowulf Devuan Releases

referencing RSS Feed Readers, please go to https://rachelbythebay.com/w/ and do a page search for "feed reader" since she has done a fairly exhaustive review over the course of 22 commentaries.

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brocashelm

Member

Registered: 2020-06-29

Posts: 137  

Re: Switching to GTK2 from GTK3 on Post-Beowulf Devuan Releases

Do the happy dance! I finally got rid of Thunderbird as my e-mail client, thanks to the versatility of Claws Mail (last GTK2 version being 3.17.8). Much like SpaceFM, it's very customizable, and you get a lot of handy plugins for security and encryption. I recommend this guide to hardening your Claws Mail profile(s). Claws Mail's official wiki can also be a good resource on setting things up. Surprisingly, the ArchWiki does not have a page on Claws Mail (they usually do).