Hot take: good riddance.
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Hot take: good riddance. I dislike the middle click thing. Trips me up all the time as someone who accidentally clicks it when scrolling.
I think the right move is to make this (undoubtedly useful to some) behavior opt-in, not opt-out.
A lot of the gripes I see are just people being mad because GNOME makes choices they don't like. I don't understand why people write like this about GNOME, if you don't like it don't use it, your emotions make you look petty, etc etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/
@vkc I was addicted to middle-click paste for most of my computing history, but then I switched to a trackball due to RSI, and the habit mostly ended immediately (as the middle mouse button isn't in the middle anymore, so there's no muscle memory).
I guess it depends on what replaces it, as to whether it'll surprise me and make me angry some day. Autoscroll would be a terrible thing to happen to the middle mouse button. But, I guess as long as I can configure it, I don't care that much.
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@vkc I've been using i3 and Sway for years, and I'm now using Gnome almost exclusively.
Do I miss tiling windows and extreme customizability from time to time? Sure.
But what I don't miss is spending hours at a time trying to get apps to deal with the window manager aggressively resizing them, or getting screen sharing or screenshots to work.
Like they say: Choose the right tool for the job. Use something user-friendly if that's your focus. If you want raw hack value, use something else.
️@scy big same. I mostly alternate between Plasma and GNOME based on what task I'm doing on what machine. Both are great, both have rough spots.
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@vkc I've been using i3 and Sway for years, and I'm now using Gnome almost exclusively.
Do I miss tiling windows and extreme customizability from time to time? Sure.
But what I don't miss is spending hours at a time trying to get apps to deal with the window manager aggressively resizing them, or getting screen sharing or screenshots to work.
Like they say: Choose the right tool for the job. Use something user-friendly if that's your focus. If you want raw hack value, use something else.
️@scy@chaos.social @vkc@linuxmom.net you can run extension to tile your windows on Gnome if you'd like, it's reasonably good
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Hot take: good riddance. I dislike the middle click thing. Trips me up all the time as someone who accidentally clicks it when scrolling.
I think the right move is to make this (undoubtedly useful to some) behavior opt-in, not opt-out.
A lot of the gripes I see are just people being mad because GNOME makes choices they don't like. I don't understand why people write like this about GNOME, if you don't like it don't use it, your emotions make you look petty, etc etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/
@vkc This is unfortunately expected from Liam Proven, same guy who gave us an "amazing" article lying that KDE/GNOME/Wayland developers, as a whole, do not care about accessibility, whos whole output to the Linux community has been shitty ignorant article after shitty ignorant article
He is, in the nicest way possible, a hack writer and one of those "anti-DEI" assholes, But what do I know, im just one of those evil GNOME devs making linux evil and woke for my own profit
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The way the article is written. The way the comments talk about it.
Why do people make it sound like GNOME is some sort of secret cabal of Linux haters?
It's a freaking desktop environment, they have every right to build it however they want, and you have every right to use something different. There's zero reason to get emotionally charged about it.
There is a vested interest by numerous groups within the free and open source community to take Linux in a direction that not everyone will agree with. GNOME happens to be one such group and tends to catch a lot of flak due to their unwillingness to compromise on their principles. Something that has at times caused complications in the projects they collaborate on such as Wayland.
Ultimately, we have a difference in opinion when it comes to communities and their responsibility. I believe that a community has a responsibility to tend to the needs and interests of the people from which it consists. As a YouTuber for example, you would be nothing without your audience and as such you may have a vested interest to appease them.
GNOME is held accountable only to the developers and people within their foundation and not the community. This creates a disconnect where people feel they are being ignored. When the users of your software make that discontent known and you continue to ignore it rather than address the issue, it festers resentment. That resentment builds up into the sentiment that some people have towards GNOME today.
Sure, they can always just use COSMIC which has some feature parity to GNOME. But that isn't the point. In order to maintain a healthy community, some concessions are necessary and the cause and effect of GNOME refusing to do so is the sentiment people hold towards them.
@vkc@linuxmom.net -
@bruce I really don't think it can be "done away with" logistically, more likely would be hidden behind an extension or a Tweaks toggle (which IMO is a reasonable compromise).
Too many people like the feature for it to be in any real danger.
Come to think of it, right click is redundant, too. We should go full Apple and just have one button mice, and use the alt key for everything. People love that.
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Hot take: good riddance. I dislike the middle click thing. Trips me up all the time as someone who accidentally clicks it when scrolling.
I think the right move is to make this (undoubtedly useful to some) behavior opt-in, not opt-out.
A lot of the gripes I see are just people being mad because GNOME makes choices they don't like. I don't understand why people write like this about GNOME, if you don't like it don't use it, your emotions make you look petty, etc etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/
I don't normally get emotional about these things, but one thing Gnome did that negatively affected myself and others, I think unnecessarily, was not making GTK3 backwards compatible. That rendered a whole suite of very good audio plugin GUIs (Calf) obsolete. And I think the original developer has abandoned the project, so they may never get updated. (Not sure if I got all the details right there but that's the outcome.)
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Hot take: good riddance. I dislike the middle click thing. Trips me up all the time as someone who accidentally clicks it when scrolling.
I think the right move is to make this (undoubtedly useful to some) behavior opt-in, not opt-out.
A lot of the gripes I see are just people being mad because GNOME makes choices they don't like. I don't understand why people write like this about GNOME, if you don't like it don't use it, your emotions make you look petty, etc etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/
@vkc I too am not sad to see middle click pasting going away. On my KDE setup I have it turned off. The only thing I have to with middle clicking is my mouse wheel to engage auto scrolling in my browser.
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@vkc This is unfortunately expected from Liam Proven, same guy who gave us an "amazing" article lying that KDE/GNOME/Wayland developers, as a whole, do not care about accessibility, whos whole output to the Linux community has been shitty ignorant article after shitty ignorant article
He is, in the nicest way possible, a hack writer and one of those "anti-DEI" assholes, But what do I know, im just one of those evil GNOME devs making linux evil and woke for my own profit
@zoeyTheWitch ugh, I'm sorry for the crap you all put up with. FWIW I love GNOME and use it regularly.
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Hot take: good riddance. I dislike the middle click thing. Trips me up all the time as someone who accidentally clicks it when scrolling.
I think the right move is to make this (undoubtedly useful to some) behavior opt-in, not opt-out.
A lot of the gripes I see are just people being mad because GNOME makes choices they don't like. I don't understand why people write like this about GNOME, if you don't like it don't use it, your emotions make you look petty, etc etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/
@vkc Good. I also hope they get rid of the insert button triggering overwrite-mode, which I've seen trip people up even on Windows.
Although when they switch defaults like this, it might be nice to ask the user the first time if they want to keep it.
Emacs does a really cool thing actually, where if you use a disabled key combo it asks you if you meant to use that feature and whether you want to enable it or disable the key binding completely. -
The way the article is written. The way the comments talk about it.
Why do people make it sound like GNOME is some sort of secret cabal of Linux haters?
It's a freaking desktop environment, they have every right to build it however they want, and you have every right to use something different. There's zero reason to get emotionally charged about it.
@vkc I'm more of a lightweight window manager kind of guy (my favorite is dwm since it works how I like), but GNOME is a great choice of desktop environment in my eyes if you want a streamlined and simple workflow. Personally though, for DEs, I'm more into LXDE and KDE, but Linux is all about choice and everyone should use whatever works best for them
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Come to think of it, right click is redundant, too. We should go full Apple and just have one button mice, and use the alt key for everything. People love that.
@bruce is that what I said? How are you reading any of that from what I said?
It's a proposal to change a setting which is known to trip folks up and cause issues. To make something "opt-in" instead of foisted on folks. Many, many mice put the middle click in the scroll wheel and it causes headaches for some.
It's a reasonable proposal to be debated, and making it sound like GNOME is some sort of anti-user cabal is just silly at best, malicious at worst.
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@trezzer ugh that's the worst!
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@bruce is that what I said? How are you reading any of that from what I said?
It's a proposal to change a setting which is known to trip folks up and cause issues. To make something "opt-in" instead of foisted on folks. Many, many mice put the middle click in the scroll wheel and it causes headaches for some.
It's a reasonable proposal to be debated, and making it sound like GNOME is some sort of anti-user cabal is just silly at best, malicious at worst.
Hmm. I thought the "people love that" line would have been enough of a clue that I was being facetious, but I guess not. Sorry. It was meant as a (apparently bad) joke.
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@dcbaok I don't understand why you fear it being disabled entirely?
In GNOME at least, there's a billion extensions for fixing things, and a feature this popular almost certainly can't be gotten rid of completely.
I think that fear is irrational considering the actual proposal and the reality of how Linux is made.
@vkc I don't know that it will ever happen, and yes the fear may not be rational, but if it becomes a second-class feature who's to say what future bug will be deemed too difficult to fix, and then the feature axed entirely.
That being said I'm not out yelling about it, just watching from the sidelines. These are the first comments I've made about it.
As for Gnome extensions... suffice it to say I've had my share of bad experiences with them, they can be pretty janky.
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Hmm. I thought the "people love that" line would have been enough of a clue that I was being facetious, but I guess not. Sorry. It was meant as a (apparently bad) joke.
@bruce sorry I misread you, I have folks actually being kind of jerks in some of these replies so it's hard to filter facetiousness from everything else.
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In this period, in this timeline, at this moment, maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't talk about *desktop environment design disagreements* like they're causing deep emotional harm?
@vkc I agree with all said. Honestly, I haven't used the middle-click paste **on purpose** a single time in my whole life.
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@vkc True that! Having said that I'd like to spend a disproportionate amount of time, not to talk, but to argue with you about rounded corners
@thesaigoneer lolol
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@bruce sorry I misread you, I have folks actually being kind of jerks in some of these replies so it's hard to filter facetiousness from everything else.
I understand. As we all know, rapid-fire text responses often lack the subtleties we might like. I could have thought more about that reply before sending.
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@fennix AFAIK nobody's proposing that. On the other hand, it's a tripping hazard for folks new to Linux.
To me the proposal makes complete sense: disable by default and allow someone to opt in (via extension or some other toggle).
Yeah I think for adoption it definitely helps and I see the argument for it.
