GLib2 is an open source and freely downloadable low-level core library software that forms the basis for the GTK+ GUI toolkit framework, as well as for the GNOME graphical desktop environment.
The software has been designed from the offset to provide data structure handling for the C programming language, portability wrappers, powerful interfaces for runtime functionality like event loop, threads, dynamic loading, as well as a reliable object system.
Distributed as a standalone library software
GLib2 is distributed as a standalone library software, but it is an important part of the GTK+ Toolkit project. Both are used by many GNOME-based applications, and by the entire GNOME desktop environment.
As its name suggests, GLib2 is the next generation GLib library, used in modern applications that are part of the latest GNOME distribution and use the GTK+ 2 or even the newer GTK+ 3 frameworks. The latest release of GLib2 is always fully compatible with the latest release of GTK+ and GNOME.
Getting started with GLib2
The GLib2 library is usually installed automatically along with the GNOME desktop environment or various other GNOME apps that require it. It is usually distributed as a source package, which can be easily installed on 32 or 64-bit computer platforms.
To install GLib2 using the source package, download the latest release from either Softpedia or the project’s official website (see the homepage link at the end of the article), save it somewhere on your computer, and unpack it.
Open a terminal emulator app, navigate to the location where you have extracted the archive file (e.g. cd /home/softpedia/glib-2.43.3), run the ‘./configure && make’ command to configure and compile the library, followed by the ‘sudo make install’ command to install it system wide and make it available to all applications that require it.
