GTK2, the now-obsolete toolkit that supported much of the classic Linux desktop and is best known from the GNOME 2 era of the 2000s, has received an unofficial continuation effort called GTK2-NG.
The project is hosted on Devuan’s Git infrastructure and was initiated by a community member. The repository contains the original GTK2 codebase with new maintenance commits applied.
It is important to make it clear that it is not affiliated with GNOME or GTK, nor does it signify the return of GTK2 as an upstream-maintained toolkit. Instead, GTK2-NG is a community-driven maintenance fork focused on ensuring GTK2 remains buildable and usable on modern systems.
According to the project’s announcement, the fork already incorporates two patches from Arch AUR GTK2 maintainers and addresses compiler warnings with newer toolchains. The maintainer reports successful testing with GCC 14, Clang 21, and Leafpad.
The project prioritizes compatibility over modernization. GTK2-NG seeks to preserve the original GTK2 API and ABI, allowing existing software to build and run without major porting efforts. The maintainer has also proposed retaining current library names to avoid requiring application rebuilds.
Planned work includes testing with GCC 15, backporting further fixes, reviewing NetBSD pkgsrc patches, and selectively integrating improvements from Ardour’s YTK fork while maintaining ABI compatibility. The community also plans to test with older GTK2-based software and desktop components, such as pre-GTK3 Xfce, LXDE, MATE, GIMP, Inkscape, and other legacy applications.
Just for reference, GTK2 has been obsolete upstream for years, and distributions are phasing it out. Debian developers have considered removing GTK2 from Debian 14 “Forky,” Arch Linux has moved GTK2 to the AUR, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 no longer includes GTK2 support.
In light of this, for users who still rely on older GTK2 applications, lightweight desktops, retro Linux setups, or unported software, a maintained fork provides a practical solution to keep this software functional as mainstream distributions move forward.
