Victoria Lacroix


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Middle Click Mayhem

The Linux userbase is in an uproar!

January 11, 2026


A strange longstanding Linux-ism is that clicking a mouse’s middle button will usually paste some text at the focused text cursor. Unlike the expected behaviour of a copy-paste clipboard, it’ll specifically paste the last string of text with was selected instead of explicitly copied. To many longtime Linux users, this behaviour is expected. To newer users, this behaviour tends to be seen as weird and unintuitive. Other computer systems generally have other defaults for a middle click: on Windows, it’s generally used to engage automatic scroll—requiring far fewer repetitive motions than a scroll wheel or page up/down keys. Additionally, it’s become a common pattern in web browsers across operating systems to use the middle click to open links in a new tab—including on Linux, but only in contexts where text isn’t being edited.

Middle-click paste on Linux dates back to the 80s with the creation of the X Window System (X11, as it’s now referred). At the time, three-button mice were rare and computer hardware could not smoothly scroll an entire screen’s worth of graphics. It was probably prudent to make the default behaviour of the middle mouse button something which would be useful but not essential, which exactly describes middle-click paste. An important thing to note is that middle-click paste ended up being hardcoded into X11 with no way to disable it. This meant that other uses for a mouse’s middle button in a text editing context were strictly off the table—your only option is middle-click paste, even though today it has largely been superceded by the common right-click menu with cut/copy/paste options as well as the practically ubiquitous Control+X/C/V keyboard accelerators.

Nowadays, X11 is deprecated and is in the process of being replaced by a new system called Wayland which forgoes the more dated aspects of X11 and reimagines others where appropriate. One of the X11isms which Wayland had dropped was the middle-click paste (or more precisely the concept of a primary text selection, which underpins middle-click paste). Still, to make the transition smoother for existing users who rely on the feature, all Wayland systems decided to implement middle-click paste as an option, even making it the default behaviour in most cases. The key difference now is that the door is open for new uses for the middle button on Linux.

On 3 January 2026, GNOME developer Jordan Petridis submitted a pull request to GNOME’s desktop settings to disable middle-click paste by default, while still leaving the feature intact. He also submitted a similar pull request to Firefox the same day.

Four days later on 7 January 2026, the Register put out an incendiary article about the change, petulantly mocking Petridis' grammar in these pull requests, noting that the feature has a long history (which I will again note is likely because it could not be disabled), and attacking the GNOME project as a whole on the imagined belief that it will be only a matter of time before middle-click paste is taken away from the many users who use it every day (despite more consistent mouse-based copy-paste mechanisms being ubiquitous, more easily discoverable, and far more intuitive).

There is no evidence that any contributor for the GNOME project is interested in outright removing the middle-click paste feature. Objections to having the feature as the default are substantiated by existing documentation regarding middle-click paste describing it as an “easter egg” in the sense of being hard to discover.

This article in particular ignited a massive controversy—at least on Mastodon, but probably also elsewhere—which has a large number of Linux users. Some are positive on the change, but many more are very negative. Many were complaints from active users of middle-click paste, lamenting the feature’s supposed removal. Many more were from folks who do not use GNOME and would not be affected by the change, yet still opted to crash out over this article.

Of what I’ve seen, there has been accusations that GNOME,

None of these claims are remotely true, but it doesn’t matter. Claims don’t even need to feel true let alone be true to gain traction—they just need to be rage-inducing to those angry toward that which they feel has wronged them.

Released in 2011, GNOME 3 was a major departure in desktop interface design. It eschewed many prior conventions in favour delivering an experience focused on minimizing distractions.

It removed desktop icons, because there’s already an application for dealing with the file system.

It hid the minimize button by default, so that the user would move unused apps onto a different workspace (or, virtual desktop) which achieves the same out-of-sight/out-of-mind effect with far less visual clutter.

It removed the dash, requiring that an application overview be opened to actually see which apps are currently being used. This change freed up a lot of screen real-estate to be used by apps themselves instead of simply always showing icons for every app you curently have open.

It removed the system notification tray, making it much more difficult for apps to make themselves into nagware.

For delivering an experience unlike anything else available on Linux, GNOME and its developers have for 15 years received endless vitriol from Linux fans who want their desktop background littered with icons that they can also find from simply navigating their file manager to the “Desktop” folder, who want to be able to hide windows in a way that requires a bar filled with application icons to be visible on-screen at all times, who want part of their precious screen space dedicated to Discord showing an essentially permanent red “unread messages” badge because who can even stay on top of all of their Discord messages when it’s a ceaselessly noisy IM app constantly demanding your attention and yet I’m supposed to believe that software which makes it harder for unscrupulous techbros to monopolize your attention is itself somehow an affront unto the very concept of software freedom.

Each of these features remains possible to reenable today by means of extensions to the GNOME Shell. They have not been reintegrated into the base GNOME experience because it turns out that many people like having a computer which allows them to keep focused on their work, but these can all easily be reenabled should one choose to do so. On many Linux distros, these extensions are even shipped by default. On the rest, installing them is relatively straightforward, especially for a user inclined to customize their computer system.

Unfortunately, it isn’t enough that it’s still possible to reenable features which were removed 15 years ago. It’s not enough that users can use any other piece of desktop software, nearly all of which happens to be built around one of two specific desktop paradigms that are different from GNOME’s. It’s not enough that X11 is still available with an incredible ongoing amount of developer time dedicated to writing all kinds of compatible software specifically targeting that platform, where upstream maintainers will never even be able to remove middle-click paste. Reactionary attitudes stop at nothing until that change which they loathe is undone, never to be reinstated. The only acceptable course of action for these folks is to reject innovation, and embrace tradition.

For all the bluster about GNOME being opposed to having options, there’s no equivalent outcry to middle-click paste not being optional in most contexts. If it has come from the GNOME camp, then the idea of having an additional option, to present users with choice where none previously existed, is suddenly a problem to the crowd that loathes GNOME for daring to push desktop design in new directions. My understanding of this case is that middle-click paste is being sidelined in order to implement middle-click autoscroll as an eventual default now that Wayland has made such an thing possible. For those who prefer the old behaviour, it’ll still be an option, but the new feature should make much more common forms of computer use (scrolling to read) much easier to do over long periods of time. This is a good change that is sure to help newcomers and experts alike.

The real story here is that two tiny pull requests precipitated a piece of hostile yellow journalism which ignited a total rage show around the Linux-enthusiast web. Sources weren’t checked. Context was ignored. Biases were confirmed. Alleged critical-thinkers went nuclear over the mere idea that a specific Linux feature might be removed in software that they don’t use. It’s apparently okay to stalk, harass, and misrepresent volunteers contributing to free software, if it happens to be the accepted scapegoat.

To those who would mourn middle-click paste’s removal—should such a thing happen, which I find doubtful—here’s what you need to know: the most common reason why a feature would be removed is not lack of use, but for lack of maintainers. As free software, GNOME is developed largely by volunteers. Out of everyone who has prematurely lamented this feature’s demise, surely there must be someone willing to spare some time to ensure that the feature continues to receive support within GNOME. After all, if the feature is so valuble that so many people would be willing to flame volunteers over its rumoured removal, then it must be worth somebody’s time to keep it alive. If GNOME’s middle-click paste languishes and flounders without love, you’ll only have yourselves to blame.

In other words:

Put up or shut up.