Hot take: good riddance.
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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.
@vkc I'm not particularly plussed about middle click paste going away but that article is not okay.
I for one would like changes in behaviour of software to be done extremely purposefully and rarely and come with usability studies and solid data backing up it being an improvement, but I don't think that not happening warrants the level of hatred currently poured on GNOME (… again
) either way. -
@vkc not when you have muscle memory going back to the 1980s with middle click
not when the distro(s) you like have it as the default desktop
not when the other desktops are just a heap of no
Gnome tried to get rid of icons on the desktop a few years ago. User pressure brought them back (admittedly through some pretty foul shell hacks)
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Yeah, some of those reactions are over the top. But middle click paste really is a great feature. If Gnome does away with it, I hope somebody adds it back via an extension, and fast.
With any luck, the Gnome devs will read the room for once and abandon that idea.
@bruce Agreed. Once you get used to it, middle-click paste is hard to shake. I still try to do it on Windows work PCs and look confused when it doesn't work.
Trouble is, I don't think gtk apps have done it properly for years. I think the semantics are supposed to be that if you click on somewhere with a caret, it leaves the primary selection intact. So you can highlight some text, reposition the cursor, then middle click to paste. Gnome apps seem to clear the selection when you do this.
@vkc -
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 There is history.
What fuels the anger is the annoyance at the lack of reflection within Gnome of its role in the failure of desktop Linux.
Most notably it's insular design choices in Gnome 3, and the early shipment of that non-ready software, reducing Linux's share of the market from MacOS levels to a third of that.
Today, yet another insular design choice by Gnome. Of course people are going to give them stick. Even if it's a good decision.
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@vkc @trezzer I mean, in order to prevent screwing up my documents, I have to (a) download a new package and then (b) dive into about:config and flip the boolean for middlemouse.paste. There should be one toggle in the plain old Settings box. I wouldn't care that much about what the default setting even is; the problem is that the simple toggle *does not exist*.
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@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.
@vkc Different case, different feature, different context, but here's an earlier frustration with lefty copy-paste behavior On Computer.
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@vkc There is history.
What fuels the anger is the annoyance at the lack of reflection within Gnome of its role in the failure of desktop Linux.
Most notably it's insular design choices in Gnome 3, and the early shipment of that non-ready software, reducing Linux's share of the market from MacOS levels to a third of that.
Today, yet another insular design choice by Gnome. Of course people are going to give them stick. Even if it's a good decision.
@glent "its role in the failure of desktop Linux"
That's a GIGANTIC assumption. And is insulting to the hard working people who work on GNOME, many of whom had nothing to do with those so-called "insular design choices".
It's open source, you can't force a team to do things your way. GNOME's foundation led to wonderful projects like Cinnamon, and I'd argue that the diversification has been a strength.
IMO it's all needless harping on folks who have different opinions.
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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've used Linux since 1995. I use it personally for fun, and I've used it professionally for 30 years, incuding some of the largest computers on earth. And I've used middle-click for that entire time.I love using Gnome, *because* it doesn't overwhelm me with options. It gets out of the way. And I think removing middle-click is the right decision. The utility just isn't worth the confusion - two clipboards and accidental middle-clicks still confuse me.
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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.
@vkc They do have a history of breaking workflows for no good reason. My first thought was "they are going to drop support for it in the future and then I'm going to have to find a new DE again, what a headache".
Of course they have the right to do whatever they please but it shouldn't be surprising that the existing users whose lives it makes more difficult will complain.
Whether they always hit the right tone with their complaints is another matter, to be sure.
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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 won't miss the middle click at all. And I started on twm back in the 90's! Just another instance of a crappy click bait article
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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
My feelings exactly!! I love GNOME and if I didn't, I would just move to a different distro. Simple as that. -
@vkc@linuxmom.net I'm not a fan of it either, never have been, it's also really hard to disable, even when switched off in Gnone, it still works in Firefox and the Terminal (in Ubuntu) and you can't disable it easily there
I think I heard it's an XORG thing, so maybe Wayland will change that, or it will be easier to control from Gnome, idk -
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 agree about making it opt-in, but given the legacy they ought to show it in the settings app not in some config file. If you upgrade your OS and it doesn't work like it's always worked before, it's reasonable to expect you could look in the mouse settings next to cursor and scroll speed
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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@darkmoon.social @vkc@linuxmom.net pro-tip: it's impossible to tell intentions of people over text. tone indicators are the way to go
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@vkc They do have a history of breaking workflows for no good reason. My first thought was "they are going to drop support for it in the future and then I'm going to have to find a new DE again, what a headache".
Of course they have the right to do whatever they please but it shouldn't be surprising that the existing users whose lives it makes more difficult will complain.
Whether they always hit the right tone with their complaints is another matter, to be sure.
@vkc I also had no idea people were having trouble with middle-button paste, until I saw people's reactions to this change.
It's such a delightful little helper, saves 2 keyboard interactions, doesn't ever paste formatting, gives me an extra buffer... and I don't recall ever having trouble with it since Firefox stopped opening everything pasted into it as a URL, many years ago.
Now I wonder what it is that I can't get used to that everybody else thinks is the best thing ever.
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Anyway, if you like GNOME and their design concepts, you're awesome and totally a valid user of Linux.
Sick of the absurd nonsense that says otherwise.
@vkc ive been playing around with cosmic...its a gnome variant I'd say with tiling toggle per workspace. Very nice themeing features as well. Very new, but functional and snappy
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It's frustration by the community using GNOME as they feel their interests aren't considered in the development process. This is a natural outcome in sociology.
When you use something, you typically have a vested interest in the prosperity of it. People tend to get frustrated when they feel ignored and some are passionate enough about it to voice their discontent.
I did the very same with you previously regarding paywalling your community.
*Edited.
@vkc@linuxmom.net@Saorsa@neondystopia.world @vkc@linuxmom.net worth noting most of those people dont use GNOME
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@glent "its role in the failure of desktop Linux"
That's a GIGANTIC assumption. And is insulting to the hard working people who work on GNOME, many of whom had nothing to do with those so-called "insular design choices".
It's open source, you can't force a team to do things your way. GNOME's foundation led to wonderful projects like Cinnamon, and I'd argue that the diversification has been a strength.
IMO it's all needless harping on folks who have different opinions.
@vkc thanks for illustrating my point.
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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 Agreed. Although I wish wayland actually cared about accessibility
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@vkc it's framed in obvious inflammatory rhetoric, and also "because X11 did it that way" is a total non-reason for nuking a feature common to graphical unices since the 1980s. But yes, I agree, they're free to do whatever they want in their little playground! GNOME has been pushing through the boundaries of sensible user interface design for quite a while now. Nothing new there.
@theodric@social.linux.pizza @vkc@linuxmom.net You're talking as if the desktop hurt you personally.
