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Linux Mint looks to fork more GNOME Apps because of libAdwaita
(blog.linuxmint.com)
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this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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It's basically GNOME specific version of GTK4. There are various issues that arise from that but one of the main ones is that it is not themeable at all at present. The GNOME adiwaita theme is built into the library and is the only theme.
It is supposedly going to have a themeing system but it will still break with existing GTK themes.
As the Mint blog alludes to, it also embeds fundamental UI choices that may make sense for GNOME but may be jarring or out of place in other desktops such as Cinnamon, or XFCE. They cite the example that GNOME could unilaterally remove the minimise button from the apps because it's not something that exists in GNOME.
There is a concern that it effectively breaks the existing app ecosystem and will deviate further and further from the established GTK norms. To be fair is kinda what it's supposed to do - I think it's it's supposed to be a better replacement that allows GNOME to forge it's own path.
Edit: worth noting that the Mint blog post says they could make their own theme within their own version of the library but it could only fit with one GTK fheme. So it can be customise in a limited distro level way but still can't follow the basic themeing across the desktop if you chose anything else (at present).
To be honest, I'm kind of afraid that Linux will go the day of Windows with zero UI consistency because of apps that can't be themed to even look vaguely similar or may even take over the window decorations.
I kinda liked it more when gtk-qt was still a thing and you could actually get a semi-unified look for the while environment.
Linux has never had UI consistency. If you came to it during a brief period of time when a select subset of software that you used seemed to share some consistency, that's was coincidental.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Software should be in constant flux and evolving. As part of that alternatives constantly compete and on Linux all the upheaval is done in the open.
Gtk and QT weren't consistent but there was a Gtk style that used QT as a rendering backend, which allowed you to get some semblance of consistency. Then they came up with Adwaita, which doesn't really allow that anymore.
Qt is a thing. Idk why all these environments are messing around with a GTK that's being sabotaged/neglected by GNOME while Qt just keeps working.
License.
https://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation/