Upstream package maintainer dropped it because GTK2 is deprecated: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=889137#10
Of course, the practical upshot of that decision is that Debian Sid and Ubuntu >= 17.10 ship an unusable gtkcairo matplotlib backend. ** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #889137 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=889137 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1785458 Title: Support for GTK2 backends broken (18.04 bionic) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/matplotlib/+bug/1785458/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs