For four decades, I've been copying text by selecting it and then pasting by clicking the middle mouse button. It suddenly stopped working, with no announcement that I saw, when I updated from Fedora 43 to Fedora 44. It was very frustrating. That this was intentional is quite rude. There are actually two paste buffers: the ^C / ^V one and the mouse select / middle button click one. It turns out that this is a GNOME "improvement". Here's an OK write-up. <https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/can-we-revert-downstream-the-disabling-of-middle-click-pasting-future-version-of-gnome/179408> See also <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=313089> Fix 1: dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/gtk-enable-primary-paste true That only affects the current user. Variants of that command can have system-wide effects (I try not to understand dconf). Fix 2: Use GNOME Tweaks: Mouses & Touchpad: Mouse: Middle Click Paste This only affects the current user/
On Tue, 9 Jun 2026 11:16:40 -0400 (EDT) "D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk" <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
For four decades, I've been copying text by selecting it and then pasting by clicking the middle mouse button.
It suddenly stopped working, with no announcement that I saw, when I updated from Fedora 43 to Fedora 44. It was very frustrating. That this was intentional is quite rude.
Hugh, I am addicted to the middle mouse button click. It works fine under FVWM. I sure hope FVWM gets ported to Wayland. -- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
On Tue, Jun 09, 2026 at 11:16:40AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
For four decades, I've been copying text by selecting it and then pasting by clicking the middle mouse button.
It suddenly stopped working, with no announcement that I saw, when I updated from Fedora 43 to Fedora 44. It was very frustrating. That this was intentional is quite rude.
There are actually two paste buffers: the ^C / ^V one and the mouse select / middle button click one.
It turns out that this is a GNOME "improvement". Here's an OK write-up. <https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/can-we-revert-downstream-the-disabling-of-middle-click-pasting-future-version-of-gnome/179408> See also <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=313089>
Fix 1: dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/gtk-enable-primary-paste true That only affects the current user. Variants of that command can have system-wide effects (I try not to understand dconf).
Fix 2:
Use GNOME Tweaks: Mouses & Touchpad: Mouse: Middle Click Paste This only affects the current user/
Fix 3: Don't use gnome. -- Len Sorensen
Thanks, I use this too. I remember the last time it happened. My issue with Fedora and 7.1 kernels, also recurring after a couple of years, is my screen not returning from closing the lid. Mike On Tue, Jun 9, 2026, 11:17 AM D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk < talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
For four decades, I've been copying text by selecting it and then pasting by clicking the middle mouse button.
It suddenly stopped working, with no announcement that I saw, when I updated from Fedora 43 to Fedora 44. It was very frustrating. That this was intentional is quite rude.
There are actually two paste buffers: the ^C / ^V one and the mouse select / middle button click one.
It turns out that this is a GNOME "improvement". Here's an OK write-up. < https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/can-we-revert-downstream-the-disablin...
See also <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=313089>
Fix 1: dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/gtk-enable-primary-paste true That only affects the current user. Variants of that command can have system-wide effects (I try not to understand dconf).
Fix 2:
Use GNOME Tweaks: Mouses & Touchpad: Mouse: Middle Click Paste This only affects the current user/ ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/NZIVMWN...
D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote on 2026-06-09 08:16:
For four decades, I've been copying text by selecting it and then pasting by clicking the middle mouse button.
It's one of those features I use to demonstrate to Windows users the superiority (ease-of-use) of Linux desktops. Love it.
It suddenly stopped working, with no announcement that I saw, when I updated from Fedora 43 to Fedora 44.
I saw some discussion about this but mostly ignored it because I don't use Gnome.
It was very frustrating. That this was intentional is quite rude.
I can understand the rationale behind removing it as a default. I'd expect a BIG notification about it though. New Linux users have been very confused by accidental pastes. In browsers it's common to middle-click as a "gesture", then with no further button presses one can scroll just moving mouse up or down. But middle-click gesture in an input field and... "oops!" Having to run a CLI or install a tweaks package to re-enable it? Crazy.
It turns out that this is a GNOME "improvement". Yeah, they do far too many of these things.
participants (5)
-
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Howard Gibson -
Lennart Sorensen -
Michael Hill -
Ron