Bug 2390089

Summary:	squeekboard depends on obsolete Rust bindings for GTK3
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Fabio Valentini <decathorpe>
Component:	squeekboard	Assignee:	sorensentor
Status:	CLOSED WORKSFORME	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	43	CC:	david08741, lihis, me, rust-sig, sorensentor
Target Milestone:	---	Flags:	decathorpe: needinfo? (sorensentor)
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Linux
URL:	https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/squeekboard/-/issues/64
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2025-10-06 19:27:48 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Fabio Valentini 2025-08-21 14:01:43 UTC

The Rust bindings for GTK3 have been obsolete and deprecated in Fedora for a while, and were now dropped from Fedora repos for Fedora 43+:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Retire_gtk3-rs,_gtk-rs-core_v0.18,_and_gtk4-rs_v0.7

It looks like the upstream project is aware of the issue, but has not made relevant progress porting to GTK4 and newer versions of the Rust bindings:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/squeekboard/-/issues/64

At this point, you have two (or three) choices:

1. Retire squeekboard from Fedora 43+.
2. Build with vendored Rust dependencies.
3. Wait for upstream progress porting to GTK4 / newer gtk-rs versions, leave the package in a temporarily broken state, and backport upstream changes ASAP.

Personally, I would recommend against Option 2, since gtk-rs v0.18 has been obsolete for years. Additionally, there are known soundness bugs in this version of the GTK bindings that were only addressed in newer versions (and in the rust-glib0.18 package in Fedora, which has now been retired).


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Fabio Valentini 2025-09-23 20:31:03 UTC

*ping*

Please let me know which of these paths you would take. If I get no response, I will assume option 1 and retire squeekboard from Fedora 43+ one day before the start of the F43 Final Freeze (2025-10-06).

Comment 2 Tomi Lähteenmäki 2025-10-01 18:33:38 UTC

I'm not this package maintainer but FYI: I have an open Review Request for Stevia [1] which as alternative for Squeekboard. So if Squeekboard is left into broken state we hopefully have some working on-screen keyboard for our Mobility needs.

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2388645

Comment 3 Fabio Valentini 2025-10-06 19:27:48 UTC

Thanks, that's good to know.

Since there's been no response to this bug in 1½ months and no response to NEEDINFO request in two weeks, I've gone ahead with option 1) / retirement to prevent broken packages from being shipped in the upcoming Fedora 43 (the final freeze goes into effect in less than 24 hours).