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 the fear is that after being disabled by default, it will eventually be removed entirely.
I can understand being frustrated by accidental triggering, especially with the new fast scrolling super clicky mouse wheels.
I specifically buy a mouse that doesn't do this because I'm left-handed and copy paste almost exclusively with the middle button.
As a lefty, middle-click paste is a godsend. Otherwise, I have to move off the mouse to the keyboard and back.
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@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)
@scruss no. Don't get emotionally charged about it.
It's a design choice. Your emotions shouldn't matter, just choose something different. Run a command to add the feature back.
I'm not saying don't have opinions. I'm saying, emphatically, that getting emotionally charged about it is, in fact, a bad thing.
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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
if you say so -
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
Like, give it a week and an extension to bring back middle click will be published, and harmony will be restored
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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 it's just a desktop, no need to get insulting
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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 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
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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 and it is a default setting, it can be flipped back on.
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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 I started using computers when it was still the users who had to adapt. I kept that mentality throughout the years.
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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
edit: one typoBecause Linux and the graphic environments are so good that people need something to complain.
I don't like Gnome, I prefer Mate, XFCE or KDE, but, the most important is we have choice to install them, and configure them like we want.I would like there is a middle clic in LibreOffice when you unselected text to past. Dev answered it depend on system.
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@vkc the fear is that after being disabled by default, it will eventually be removed entirely.
I can understand being frustrated by accidental triggering, especially with the new fast scrolling super clicky mouse wheels.
I specifically buy a mouse that doesn't do this because I'm left-handed and copy paste almost exclusively with the middle button.
As a lefty, middle-click paste is a godsend. Otherwise, I have to move off the mouse to the keyboard and back.
@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.
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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?
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.
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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 have two professional mentors who both insist on using Enlightenment like it's still 2003. I don't know how or why, but that's the beauty of Linux that you can.
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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 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.
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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 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.
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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
