How to run older GTK2 app

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Tim-int
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How to run older GTK2 app

Post by Tim-int »

I'm trying to run older GTK app in Mint 19 with Cinnamon. App crashes in GTK3.
I use command "SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gtk application" that should work but it doesn't. "SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen application" works.
I tried to install and use MATE core desktop, but it also runs GTK3 application. How comes that, isn't MATE GTK2?
I have various libgtk2 and libgtk-3 installed.
I'm looking for help how to solve this, thanks.
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xenopeek
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Re: Hot to run older GTK app

Post by xenopeek »

Tim-int wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 4:56 am"SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen application" works.
If that works, why doesn't that suffice?

If you start the program from the command line without SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN, what does it do? Any errors shown? What doesn't work in the program if you run it like that?

I can only find https://docs.libreoffice.org/vcl.html for documentation which suggests VCL is only used by LibreOffice and predecessors?That suggest '=gtk' isn't an option but '=gtk3' is. IDK.
Tim-int wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 4:56 amHow comes that, isn't MATE GTK2?
3 years ago to move to Gtk3 was completed: https://mate-desktop.org/blog/2017-03-1 ... -released/
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Tim-int
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Re: Hot to run older GTK app

Post by Tim-int »

In my case, I tested some bugs in Libreoffice, I cannot run old versions in GTK3 and bugs don't appear in gen.
'=gtk' should be valid option, per what I read.
Thank you for explanation about MATE, I missed that.
But general question remains, how to run older GTK app in GTK rendering.
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thx-1138
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Re: Hot to run older GTK app

Post by thx-1138 »

...i can't really understand the exact question myself, maybe something gets lost in the translation somewhere.
That said...few notes, maybe something among those lines helps you there.

1) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LibreOffice#Theme

2) LibreOffice has been known in the past at least to act somewhat 'flakey' when gtk3 integration was enabled.
Not sure if such is the case today (and i never experienced that issue myself).

https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?suit ... chon=names
Here eg. i only have libreoffice-gtk3 installed. Since all works fine here, i haven't kept the older libreoffice-gtk2.
For whatever reason, you might be experiencing the exact opposite though.
Short to speak, see if adding / removing one of those packages makes any difference...

Hope that helps.
Tim-int
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Re: How to run older GTK app

Post by Tim-int »

This is not a problem of LibreOffice but of missing old GTK2 environment, looks like all is GTK3 now.
XFCE will also not work because XFCE4 is GTK3.
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xenopeek
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Re: How to run older GTK2 app

Post by xenopeek »

Trying to understand context. Why you are trying to reproduce bugs in obsoleted versions of LibreOffice?

Are you compiling these old versions from source or are you running them from a binary that was made for an also obsoleted distribution? Would it help to run that obsoleted distribution? You can find ISOs of obsoleted Linux Mint releases on most mirrors, such as here: http://mirrors.evowise.com/linuxmint/stable/. Same for Ubuntu: http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/. You can boot such an ISO in a virtual machine like VirtualBox and then test the obsoleted version of LibreOffice on that?
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