Ubuntu Planning To Drop Qt4 & Its Dependencies Ahead Of 20.04 LTS

[DanL]

After migrating a sizeable Qt2.x application to Qt3 and then subsequently to Qt4. I vowed never to do it again and just rewrite the damn thing (preferably in a more sane toolkit).

Qt4 -> Qt5 should be easier.

[L_A_G]

...

I somehow get the feeling that you're just really desperate to push Motif the same way Rust fanboys are desperate to push it.

Seriously, we're not talking about moving to an entirely different API and even that would still only force you to re-write the front end part of the application. No, we're talking about moving to a very iterative improvement on the API the application uses for it's front end, known to be a fairly minor amount of work. I seriously doubt this is more than a few days of work for most applications, so the only type of applications this is actually going to be an issue for is abandonware.

[Weasel]

Yet another perfect example why Linux is a joke on the desktop. Keep dropping stuff and compatibility, retarded monkeys.

Its interesting to note that if you had chosen to use Qt4, you would now need to either rewrite into Qt5 or bundle your own libs... and yet, if you wrote your software to use Motif/libXm, you would still be good to go. Basically Motif has outlived Qt4 on Ubuntu.

Therefore going forward I would advise any long running program to use Motif rather than Qt5 because when Qt6 comes out, Ubuntu is unable to maintain versions correctly.

Luckily most proprietary software bundles Qt (such as Maya) and Gtk2. I can also honestly see Motif outliving an entire technology like Wayland.

This.

[carewolf]

After migrating a sizeable Qt2.x application to Qt3 and then subsequently to Qt4. I vowed never to do it again and just rewrite the damn thing (preferably in a more sane toolkit).

Qt3 to Qt4 was a HUGE change. Qt4 to Qt5 is often just a recompile.

[jo-erlend]

Yet another perfect example why Linux is a joke on the desktop. Keep dropping stuff and compatibility, retarded monkeys.

This.

Does Windows and Apple even have support for Qt by default, or are they also jokes on the desktop? If you want to use decades old software, you're free to do so, but you might have to provide the dependencies, as you do on Windows and Mac OS.

[Jumbotron]

About damn time to drop QT4. if as a developer you haven't ported your app from QT4 to QT5 you are eithet:

1) Incompetent
2) Lazy
3) Abandoning your software
4) All of the above.

Maybe having your app taken out of the repositories will light a fire under your ass. If not...then pick a number from above.

[Vistaus]

Its interesting to note that if you had chosen to use Qt4, you would now need to either rewrite into Qt5 or bundle your own libs... and yet, if you wrote your software to use Motif/libXm, you would still be good to go. Basically Motif has outlived Qt4 on Ubuntu.

Therefore going forward I would advise any long running program to use Motif rather than Qt5 because when Qt6 comes out, Ubuntu is unable to maintain versions correctly.

Luckily most proprietary software bundles Qt (such as Maya) and Gtk2. I can also honestly see Motif outliving an entire technology like Wayland.

Not just Motif: FOX too, and Pascal and plenty of others.

[Vistaus]

There's a whole list of packages here: https://wiki.debian.org/Qt4Removal

Part of which are dead and/or part of KDE 4. So the actual list (of supported Qt 4 software or (unofficial) porting to Qt 5 being done) is much, much smaller.

[Vistaus]

Yet another perfect example why Linux is a joke on the desktop. Keep dropping stuff and compatibility, retarded monkeys.

macOS keeps dropping stuff too and is about to drop 32-bit and Windows has dropped two of their own design languages lately. But I guess both of them are a joke on the desktop too, right?

[M@GOid]

I hope this put some incentive to the few remaining Amarok developers to release a Qt5 version. I still use it because I never found other player with a playlist as good as it (personal preference, people) and also that works. Some player Kubuntu shipped a while ago was hopeless broke for me.