[Slackbuilds-users] deprecation of webkit2gtk

[Bob Funk]

I have had time to run a mass rebuild of all the gnome packages I use in
order to put together a functioning gnome desktop environment.

For some background, the general idea around the gnome desktop environment
you can get on slackbuilds.org was as follows:

gnome-settings-daemon/gnome-control-center   -   provides the control panel
for the gnome desktop, which is integrated into the gnome-shell interface.
gnome-shell/mutter                                              -   the
actual graphical interface
gdm                                                                      -
 login manager and screen locking facility for gnome desktop

After those core packages, I maintain the packages for applications that
gnome ships to fill out the desktop as well, otherwise its just a bare
graphical shell with a settings panel.

~~~

Now with gnome-online-accounts bumped and put on the webkit2gtk4.1/libsoup3
dependency chain, the following packages are broken:

gnome-control-center   -   crashes immediately at runtime due to mixed
libsoup2 and libsoup3 symbols. This basically kneecaps the entire gnome
desktop environment, making gnome-shell fairly useless as a desktop
environment for users. gnome-shell can still be installed and used to run
gdm, but if a user tries launching a gnome-shell based desktop from gdm as
that combination is intended to do, they wont have a functional control
panel in that desktop environment.

I think the gnome-control-center package will have to be removed until the
next release where slackware has newer glib2/gtk/gjs/etc libraries that can
support the gnome desktop environment stack again. I'll have to update my
build queue repo's readmes and LQ posts with warning messages about the
breakage. There's other options/repos out there to install the gnome
desktop now anyway so I could just point others to use that now.

evolution-data-server   -   This fails to build at its current version,
citing a missing webkit2gtk4.0 package. This webkit2gtk4.0 dependency was
previously pulled into the build order via gnome-online-accounts being at
the older version. With the newer version of gnome-online-accounts, this
build is broken, which will break all further builds with
evolution-data-server in their dependency chain.

I managed to build evolution-data-server version 3.46.4, which had
webkit2gtk4.1 supported, but had to switch off some now unsupported options
in the slackbuild to do that. Then I used that package to continue testing
against other builds I have that depend on evolution-data-server. I hope
Ozan is reading this because it's his package and it also will fall through
to the evolution package he maintains.

 I only looked at my builds that need evolution-data-server which are:
  gnome-maps        <--- still breaks, even with upgrading
evolution-data-server, need to look if newer version is possible
  gnome-contacts   <--- runs okay with newer evolution-data-server
  gnome-calendar   <--- build is broken against newer evolution-data-server
due to libsoup2/libsoup3, need to look if newer version is possible
  gnome-shell         <--- builds and runs against the newer
evolution-data-server, but control panel is broken if used as a regular
desktop environment, as mentioned earlier
  gdm                      <--- builds and runs as expected with newer
evolution-data-server
  gnome-terminal    <--- builds and runs as expected with newer
evolution-data-server

So there is a mix of success and failure there. I was keeping those
packages in the same older gnome versions to keep everything at libsoup2
dependent versions. Now that gnome-control-center is broken, there's not
much point to trying to maintain a functional desktop experience and I'll
look further into if these individual applications can just be bumped to
newer versions.

The rest of my builds that depend on gnome-online-accounts seem to build
and run okay with the newer version on webkit2gtk4.1.

To recap what is broken by the gnome-online-accounts changeover, even if
evolution-data-server gets an update:
  gnome-control-center
  gnome-maps
  gnome-calendar
Which I'd suggest removal of for now.

Also, regarding gnome-builder:
The gnome-builder 42.x versions are the latest we can build on slackware
15.0. Anything newer wants a higher glib2 version, and/or more deps as well
like needing libdex, which is also version stuck because of glib2's age in
slackware 15.0. If you are wanting to remove webkit2gtk (4.0), then maybe
remove this too. I don't use it, I just took over maintenance of a number
of gnome builds when the prior maintainer left. If someone wants to use it
in the next slackware version, they will be able to easily build newer
gnome-builder versions in the next release and can submit the build again
then.

So that's my findings from this morning's testing against this
webkit2gtk4.0 deprecation.

Bob


On Fri, Sep 11, 2026 at 6:32 PM Willy Sudiarto Raharjo <
willysr at slackbuilds.org> wrote:

> >@willysr: I have my testing area set up and running now. I can confirm
> that
> >gnome-boxes-43.5 builds fine and runtime is all good still. However, we
> can
> >actually push this to gnome-boxes-50.0 with the webkit2gtk4.1 switch so
> I'd
> >like to do that instead.
> >
> >I'll still be working through more packages tomorrow and testing against
> >gnome-online-accounts changes.
> >
> >Now I see that you have your issue on github and already merged 43.5. I
> >could submit a PR for gnome-boxes-50.0 and get this through tomorrow or
> >next week if its too late now. I'm just a huge git expert so I'm not sure
> >if that conflicts with your now merged 43.5 version?
> >
> >Also, there's probably more communication we're going to need to have
> >around other packages in this change. Would you prefer I continue with you
> >on github on that issue you have open? I'd be responding as 0xBOBF.
>
> Today is the public update, so if you are still testing gnome-boxes-50, i
> can
> just push the 43 updates first and we will get it done with 50 updates for
> next
> week. This will give you more time to test :)
>
> If you submit PR for anything, i can manage it on our side, do not worry
> about
> conflicts. Just make sure you base your updates from our latest master
> branch
>
> Yes, feel free to communicate with us via any means, email, github/gitlab,
> mailing list.
>
>
> --
> Willy Sudiarto Raharjo
>
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