The Artix Linux team has announced it is officially ending support for GNOME-based desktop environments, citing upstream changes that make it impossible to run them without systemd.
For those unfamiliar, Artix is a systemd-free, Arch-based distribution that offers users the rolling-release model and extensive software availability of Arch Linux, but with alternative init systems, including OpenRC, runit, dinit, and s6.
The distribution offers KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, Xfce, MATE, LXDE, and LXQt versions, plus a minimal base without a desktop.
The decision follows the release of GNOME 49, where the fallback code in gnome-session that previously allowed non-systemd setups via elogind has been removed. With no alternative code path available, GNOME now requires systemd as a hard dependency.
“Since we don’t have the time or interest to write a new non-systemd codepath for gnome-session, this means that all support for GNOME-based desktops has to be dropped.”
As a result, gnome-session, gnome-shell, mutter, and gnome-settings-daemon will no longer be maintained in the Artix repositories. While older versions of these packages remain for now, maintainers warn they may not function correctly and will eventually be removed.
Standalone GNOME applications, however, are not affected and will continue to be packaged for users.
For more information, see the announcement in Artix’s forums.
Something similar could happen with Plasma next year, they are replacing SDDM with plasma-login, which will behave a lot like gnome-session (being able to control WiFi, BT and brightness right at the login screen) and the shortest path to do such things, is systemd -I fear-.
Wise decision. Red Hat is trying to force their stuff down everyone’s throat, as usual. They spend a lot of money trying to discredit or extinguish the competition via bots and paid trolls for everything they NIHed at some point, thereby acting against the open source community.
Dropping Gnome isn’t a big loss for anyone either. It has been massively losing momentum of late anyways.
It’s on its way to become a second-tier Linux DE at this point, except maybe for some gullible cultists who drank the kool-aid.