fucking GNOME again, this time they want to remove middle click

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

fucking GNOME again, this time they want to remove middle click

https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/07/gnome_middle_click_paste/

the guy also filed a bug on fucking Firefox to remove it. Mozilla told him to fuck off. I think this answer has the explanation:

> This is basically a Gnome dev trying to change a setting everywhere they personally don't like (my suspicion is they middle-clicked something embarrassing personally and now are on a warpath).

https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D277804#9633699

EDIT: hello to all the GNOME partisans replying "they're not *removing* it, they're *disabling* it, you fool, you rube," yeah thanks guys. i'm sure you'll fix it in version 0.8

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

GNOME can make middle click the AI button

[tubemeister@mstdn.social]

@davidgerard Please don't give them ideas...

(xfce user here, but still. This sort of shit has a tendency to be infectious)

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@Tubemeister cos Xfce uses GTK and has no paid devs i think, sigh. I tried GNOME like 2012 and have been on Xubuntu since. Tried it again in a VM recently and I'm going "this is supposed to be better??"

[tubemeister@mstdn.social]

@davidgerard Don't remember exactly, may have done similar.

I don't have high standards for window managers, if it does alt-tab and the window borders aren't comically big I'm generally good with it. But I seem to remember Gnome of the 2010ish time just barely meeting that standard.

Mind, xfce has its own foibles ofcourse...

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@Tubemeister as long as xfce stays the un-innovative desktop, i'm happy

[theentity@social.treehouse.systems]

@davidgerard @Tubemeister

Tried GNOME 3 (with Fedora I think? Or was it OpenSuse?) once and after having enough arguments with my own desktop I went "fuck this" and went Xubuntu then eventually just Debian w/ XFCE.

Amazing how many of my shitty computers suddenly started working great again as I made each switch. The GOAT.

[ef@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@TheEntity @davidgerard @Tubemeister post-Gnome2 have been Gnome free. Understand Redhat are trying to make commercial support simple but am not a fan of their software or approach so avoid. Xfce is a very decent DE.

[tubemeister@mstdn.social]

@EF @TheEntity @davidgerard I seem to remember going from gnome 2 to gnome 3 a LOT of configuration options just disappeared.

I get that this is a hard problem with reimplementations, but it's also a perfect way to piss off your userbase if they were in fact using said functionality.

[ef@mastodon.bsd.cafe]

@Tubemeister @TheEntity @davidgerard not sure if Gnome care about end users as they don't fund the project. Most non-technical users seem not to care. Vast majority just want a clicky UI that works and means they can surf the 'Net, write documents etc. My world is tiling with no-DE and I tinker...

[davidgerard@circumstances.run]

@EF @Tubemeister @TheEntity normal non-technical users don't use GNOME either though. GNOME has spent a decade or more frantically chasing a userbase that doesn't really exist. Compare Firefox chasing an imaginary AI userbase and actively alienating the userbase they actually have.

[kyle_pegasus@scalie.club]

@davidgerard @EF @Tubemeister @TheEntity it's a very 2000s mindset, this idea that one day there's going to be "non technical" Linux users that aren't grandmas whos laptops are set up by an extremely technical Linux using relative

It's like nobody told them that "non technical" users don't really use computers. They have phones now

[kyle_pegasus@scalie.club]

@davidgerard @EF @Tubemeister @TheEntity the other gnome user cope I enjoy is that they call it a "powerful keyboard driven interface", which I think just means you can't click on anything because the Devs deleted all the buttons

[hittitezombie@mastodon.me.uk]

@kyle_pegasus @davidgerard @EF @Tubemeister @TheEntity

The GNOME project will finish when they reach their final aim: The UI with a single button used by a single mouse button, and when you click on the button, it will tell you "You're doing it wrong" and close itself.