February 27, 2026
Out with GTK2, in with drama
Debian Removes Free Pascal Compiler / Lazarus IDE
Debian dumps old graphics tech, Pascal crowd panics — is it real or rumor
TLDR: Debian’s plan to drop old GTK2 sparked fears that Free Pascal/Lazarus were removed, but commenters claim FPC may stay and Lazarus’s GTK2 tie is fixable. The crowd splits between “keep it, it works” and “move on,” with traffic surging and memes dubbing it GTK‑Gate.
Debian’s move to drop the old GTK2 graphics toolkit lit up the Pascal world like a Christmas tree. The Lazarus team warned that Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) and Lazarus vanished from Debian’s “Forky” (unstable) repo, spooking devs because so many distros ride the Debian train. Bad optics, big feelings, instant drama.
In the comments, the split is spicy. kasabali says the “bigger issue” is Debian axing everything tied to GTK2. anthk calls it “the curse on the Unix world,” pointing to BSDs keeping compatibility libraries like museum exhibits. Then jonp888 strolls in with a chill: it might be a misunderstanding — FPC isn’t hard‑wired to GTK2, and Lazarus’s GTK2 dependency is a fixable bug, not a death sentence. Meanwhile, potus_kushner insists there’s “no technical reason” to remove GTK2, only “political ones.” And enricotr declares the site is “slashdotted,” meaning the traffic spike is real.
The meme factory kicks into gear: “GTK‑Gate,” “Pascal Panic,” and “just use Qt6” vs “it’s not that easy.” Folks argue over whether Qt builds still rely on GTK‑adjacent bits like Cairo and Pango. Proposed fixes fly: ship the non‑GTK pieces inside Lazarus, or do a Linux‑only FPC release. The only consensus? Drama sells.
Key Points
- •Debian’s unstable (“Forky”) repository has reportedly removed FPC and Lazarus due to Debian dropping GTK2 support.
- •The article asserts both Lazarus and FPC on Linux have dependencies linked to GTK2, complicating removal.
- •FPC’s gtk2 package provides units (e.g., CairoCanvas, Glade, glib2, Pango) that Lazarus relies on, even for Qt builds.
- •Removing FPC’s gtk2 package might satisfy Debian but would break Lazarus applications on Linux.
- •Proposed solutions include a Linux-only FPC release (based on 3.2.4 rc1) and moving needed units into Lazarus’s LCL in a future release.