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The middle mouse button on the X Window System is normally used to paste the primary selection.[en.wikipedia.org] It's like the clipboard, but it has the text you've most recently selected.
It's a very convenient way of copying text with the mouse (I use it all the time, more than the clipboard) but it being the standard means that even applications that support autoscroll will probably have it disabled by default.
You can enable autoscroll in Firefox's preferences and in LibreOffice's options under the "View" section (uMiddle mouse button).
For Chrome and Chromium there's an autoscroll extension, so I suppose it doesn't support it by itself.
This answer on stack exchange[unix.stackexchange.com] mentions a way to emulate the mouse wheel in an autoscroll-like manner, but it's probably too choppy and mutually exclusive with the native autoscroll support some applications have so you'd be better off not using it.
Thanks a lot, that does alleviate a lot of the trouble! Since Firefox has it and seems to use it pretty well, I'll use that. It doesn't fix the desire to use it on Steam and other stuff, but at least that's something. Steam's scroll bars are thick enough to where it's not too much of a trouble to just click and drag them.
Yeah. Currently trying out Manjaro KDE at the current moment that I'm typing. It's... really really nice, and probably the flavor I'm going to go with. I went to the mouse options but they don't seem to be too helpful. https://i.imgur.com/ja9SxxH.png
But that's fine, since it works pretty well for Firefox, which a web browser will be most of my method of using it.
I'm going to make a partition of one of my drives and install the OS on that, once Windows will let me shrink the partitions.
As of the mouse wheel itself, that should be able to be used. If you are not having that go through you likely have your mouse setup wrong.
Which I rather find funny and ironic, considering what people say about Linux.
I've long accepted that though. I guess I should mark something as an answer.
Having a separate paste buffer on middle click is worlds more useful than universal autoscroll, anyway. You should use it extensively until you're asking the opposite and more obvious question: "Why doesn't Windows have this feature?!"
I get the feeling you're going into Linux expecting it to make things as similar to Windows in every single way possible, and I'm worried for that reason you're setting yourself up for disappointment. It's autoscroll, it's worthless compared to middle-click pasting. This is one of many cases where Linux does it better, not identically. The only irony to be found in this situation is that you get less useful features in an operating system that you buy with money.
I guess you'll have to stick with the arrow keys, page up, page down, home, end, the numpad, the mouse wheel, the scroll bar and maybe even a Steam controller for scrolling. Hey, at least you've still got options, right? :)
(Also, maximize button works properly for me. I've never desired to use the other things you mentioned, so I can't comment on that.)
I understand why that'd be a desired feature, but I'd be using autoscrolling way more. I don't paste as often as I scroll. And I much prefer the feeling of that rather than the usual "scrolling" because I can make it scroll down as much or as little as I want with little work/effort. It's easy to scroll just one pixel if I need to, or an entire page in a second if I need to, all immediately available with autoscrolling. Since the sidebar is relative, pages even as long as this one can take a bit more effort than just normal scrolling.
I went into Linux expecting to get the things that other Linux fans have said it to be (easy, simple, stable, always works, compatible with everything). I've already been horribly disappointed in those respects, but I still like the OS and what it stands for. I like user options, and Linux does that fairly well. So that's why I asked, because I thought there'd likely be an option for a feature. Hopefully sometime in the future the option might come up.
It's better for you, and that's great. It is not, however, better for me. That's why I was inquiring about such an option.
You don't need to pay to have Windows 10. I didn't. And that's not even piracy. It's just a watermark in a certain spot that's only there sometimes. Though if you're referring to "that you have to pay to have every possible feature", then yeah, you do. But you get access to just about everything except personalization options, but me, I'm often too busy doing something else to worry about what color my desktop background is or my window border color, so I'm fine with it. Of course I'd love to completely replace Windows with Linux and never have to deal with Microsoft's telemetry or option-reversing updates or such, but for now, I'm keeping the dual boot, even if mostly just for gaming. Proton/WINE just isn't an effective enough solution for what I desire, unfortunately.
Autoscrolling is way easier to get the finer detail than all of those with less effort. When I'm trying to read documentation, I'd much prefer autoscrolling, so I can spend more time reading how I want to, and less time trying to "get the spot right" with messing with the scrollbar or changing mouse wheel settings on the fly. Fortunately, there's Firefox and a Chromium extension. So for most cases (like the online documentation I'd be reading on Firefox), that's pretty much my answer. I just wish it could be universal.
It's not like there's no other option for pasting either, and it's not like everyone would benefit from a separate clipboard/paste buffer. The middle mouse button, in my opinion, should have an option to make some things easier, whether for pasting or autoscroll. That's what Linux would almost objectively do better if it had that as an option; at the very least, it'd be ideal, since instead of "one or the other", you can have both. But since one cannot seem to have what they might desire more in Linux at this time (despite their unpopular opinion), in this regard, it must remain as a forced-use feature, which is unfortunate.
This is a similar feeling to the "left mouse vs. right mouse" argument in Blender. Most typical users want to try to use left mouse to select things, since it's consistent with all the other software they use, while some of the others think that right click selecting is more efficient, useful, should stay at default, and everyone coming to Blender should learn it that way. Despite the claims for either side, it just comes down to the user. I feel it's the same here; it comes down to the user. Considering the spirit of Linux is oriented towards the user's choice and options (if they have the understanding to change certain options, however; it was a pain on Mint to mess with the touchpad settings with the file rather than a UI, but I eventually got it to a decent point) rather than filling pockets, I feel like more options would be great, and Linux already has an example available on another option.
Besides Wine and Proton, do you have any examples of this? There isn't anything I've used in Linux that makes me think "hey, cool, they must've put that there to make it easier for my former-Windows-using-brain". If I owned a Toyota, and then bought a Ford, it would still have seats and a steering wheel, but that doesn't mean that one is necessarily emulating the other, it just means that expected features are in both models.
Anything that comes with source code is not a strict "no", but rather a yes that needs more convincing. So open up a text editor and convince it if you want that feature so bad, at least it's within the realm of possibility. X has become a hot mess of code in the 20+ years that it's been known under various names, though; if I were you I'd try my luck with implementing that feature in Wayland.
You'll just have to get used to the fact that most Linux users love middle click paste, and aren't going to screw around with it just to reproduce a feature from Windows that the majority of us have just forgotten about and don't find useful. When software is developed by a community, majority rules when it comes to features. If you're in the minority, write a patch, or see if someone else has written one that you can compile into your own personal build.
Sometimes the feature you want has already been made by another person, but hasn't been accepted into the main project for whatever reasons. Poke around on Github, Gitlab, etc. and see if someone implemented the feature you're looking for, you might have some luck. If you haven't compiled or patched code before, it's not too much of a pain, and if you ask nicely in the right places, people will help you through that process.
The maximize button works if you're in a desktop environment. If you just run plain window manager, as I do, then it won't work properly. It's a minor issue that I can work around, I'm not that upset by it, though it is annoying.
Oh boy.
God, why do people pitch Linux like this? As someone who has been using Linux exclusively for over ten years... you've been slightly misinformed.
Easy? For someone who has never used a computer in their life, perhaps, because every concept is new, so it'll all make sense as you learn and have things explained to you. For someone who has been using Linux for over a decade? Definitely easy, easier than Windows once you're good with the command line and after you've written a few shell scripts in /usr/local to automate things, absolutely. But for someone transitioning from another operating system, going over a learning curve and retraining themselves on every concept they already know? No, that's a challenge, a respectable one at that. A friend once told me, "Linux is a research-oriented operating system. If you're not willing to research, it won't be a good operating system for you."
Simple? Yes, no, and "that depends". Getting your hardware working? Simple, plug it in and the kernel does the rest of the heavy lifting. If it's a video card and you need drivers, some distros will autodetect that and help you with it, others just need you to install a package or two mentioned in the user manual. Setting up MD-RAID? Not so simple, but not terribly difficult either. Changing your system configuration by editing a well-commented text file? For me, that's easier than a GUI, but that's a matter of opinion and preference. There's even debate among Linux users when things become "too simple", see systemd.timer vs. crontab if you're looking to go down a rabbit hole.
Stable? Always works? That really depends on a lot of things. How stable is your distribution? How important is stability to your distro maintainers, as opposed to conflicting goals, such as having newer packages? Slackware is an example of a distribution that is rock-solid. I'd go as far as to call it hurricane-proof. It gets this stability because its packages aren't updated very often, they are given time to "mature", as we call it. Slackware only gets package updates when compatibility breaks, or when security is the reason for updating. Even then, the team will often opt to backport security patches for older versions of software, rather than just update to the newest, freshest versions. Arch Linux is the complete opposite. Everything in that distribution is kept up to date, almost to a fault, so things can and do break much more quickly and easily.
Compatible with everything? Literally "everything"? Hardware, software, everything in between? I'm just going to say that was probably the biggest lie that anyone told you about Linux, and I'm sorry to be the one to shatter that expectation. Keep in mind, though, that claim can't be made for any operating system, not even Windows.
Linux is great with consumer hardware compatibility, but it'll choke if you try to plug in a lot of specialized equipment that already costs thousands of dollars at minimum. Think medical and industrial equipment. Although I hear that is changing, and better support in those fields is coming.
As for software, ensuring compatibility is the software developer's job, not the operating system's. Even Microsoft doesn't make it their job to make everyone's software compatible. They have documentation that says "if you want to make a program run in Windows, do these steps", and people either follow them, or they don't. Same for Linux, same for Mac OS, same for QNX and DOS and BeOS and OS/2 and Android and anything else under the sun.
Huh. Interesting. I thought that was only the case for Windows 10 IoT Edition. Can you confirm this? I just built a gaming machine for a friend, and he bought a retail copy of Windows 10 to go with it. Would've been nice if I could've saved him some money. He wanted me to install a copy that fell off the back of a truck, but I wouldn't want that transgression haunting my small business, especially if his bootleg copy came with a virus.
Understandable, especially if you've already invested in a large library of Windows-only games. Like I was saying earlier about compatibility, even with Wine and Proton, it's up to those developers whether or not your software will run as expected through those compatibility layers. They work hard at this, but it can always stand to be better. I'm sure you've experienced the hit-or-miss nature of the beast. Proton isn't a perfect solution for me, either. In time, it will be, at least for older titles, but for modern titles it'll always be a cat-and-mouse game until the heat death of the universe.
I've just stopped buying Windows games, and I haven't felt terribly left out, just a little disappointed now and then, until I remind myself that I wouldn't want to be playing a game that's very likely been coded by amateurs, anyway. After all, it takes a very special, unique kind of stupid to be a "programmer" who can't code for Linux. It shows that they lean on crutches rather than standards. I can't expect anything coded that shoddily and lazily to even run on Windows itself after three to five years after release, and I'm the kind of person who likes to buy older games and revisit games from past decades.
HJKL keys for the win. But now I'm really starting to show my nerdy side.
Not sure about Chromium, but in Firefox, just open about:config and set 'general.autoScroll' to true. No extension necessary.
Again, I know we're talking about X here for the most part, but in Firefox, middle-click will paste if you're aiming at a text entry box, it'll open links in a new tab if you're aiming at a hyperlink, and it'll autoscroll if you're aiming anywhere else (if you've enabled it). It's smart like that.
Like I said, if you want the feature that bad, you'll have to make it yourself, or see if someone else has already made a patch. Most people don't want what you want, so they didn't bother doing it. In the world of open source, every program and every feature was born out of selfishness. Someone needed something to do a thing. They made it, then released it, in case it would be useful to other people. Remember, Torvalds was originally just trying to make a task scheduler, he didn't expect he'd be making a whole damn kernel, at least not at first. The beauty of open source is that if you want to build a better mousetrap, there aren't any patents or other legal roadblocks stopping you from doing so!
I really don't mean to sound glib, and I know it's often repeated to the point of being nauseating, the notion of "if you need it, make it yourself", but that's literally how every program we take for granted today ended up being invented and improved upon, so it's important that you see the value in adopting that spirit. Even if it doesn't lead you towards being a software developer, it will help you understand what those who do that job are going through.
This has been a great discussion! I hope this helps smash some misconceptions and set you on the right path, there's a lot to take in and absorb when you're new to Linux, and there's a lot of people saying a lot of crap that just isn't true. Linux is still the best operating system on the planet, but nothing is perfect.
Yet. :D
Honestly, I just might. Maybe with a bit more programming/Linux experience though; without actually looking at the details, it sounds like I'm going to need to mess with the scrolling part of the system, and that's something I have 0 knowledge on; I'm just someone only starting to learn C after all. No idea what Wayland or such is, but from what you said it sounds like it's one of the version names of X. Sounds like I'd also need to work a while with it a lot more as well to understand it, if it's indeed a mess of code.
I guess I just didn't know so many people love it so much; a lot of people are often quick to say their opinions or often simply say to just get used to how it currently is. I didn't see anyone do either of those things when looking for a solution to that online.
I found this, but it doesn't quite say what exactly it's for. https://github.com/Pauan/AutoScroll
Looks like it's a browser extension, looking at the stuff inside. (It says it's an extension but "extension to what exactly?" was what I couldn't find the answer to. Oh well.)
Other than that, I haven't found anything with Googling around, other than the aforementioned awkward implementation.
I probably should have clarified; I "originally" went into Linux expecting those things... And I was sorely disappointed in those regards. Windows was slowing to a crawl, so I got Mint on it... I still use it on that, but I've had a higher ratio of headaches dealing with it than the time I spent using Windows. My laptop camera/microphone still don't work anymore, last I checked. With my current knowledge, turns out I'll need to reinstall to fix some of the issues I've had since the beginning. Except for PulseAudio, of course, which despises my favorite headset. I'll have to figure out how to replace it with something else, someday.
But yeah, I digress. I originally went into Linux because I was misinformed from many fronts about these sorts of things. Nowadays I still wanna get into it, but not based on those promises. I often mock those promises whenever I'm having issue with something, though.
With online sources? Sure, I guess. https://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key-to-install-and-use-windows-10/
Me I just made my own bootable Win10 USB drive and then pressed "I don't have a product key", selected Pro (or maybe I selected Pro and then I don't have a key, I don't remember now).
Some people say it's piracy... But it isn't. I mean, it's built in and Microsoft obviously made a version of Windows with certain caveats for those who didn't purchase the "full edition" (the non-paid is called "Windows 10 Home/Pro Limited Edition"). I get Pro tools at the "cost" of a watermark that usually isn't there for the first few hours upon startup, and is easily ignorable anyway. I'm using it right now. Never had a single problem with software or anything stopping me to say "hey, you need to purchase the full version". Been using it for about 3 years now, I believe. Only downsides are a watermark and the inability to directly change your wallpaper and certain other cosmetic-only visual options. WinAero pretty much does the trick in everything else that I might've forgotten about.
Yeah. I've found Proton always has a weird input delay issue. But for games that aren't requiring reflexes, I don't think that's a huge issue. I remember a random person saying somewhere about a certain distro natively supporting DX9. I can't find information on it now, so it might've just been a lie.
All that said... The old look to the buttons when running programs on WINE/Proton is nostalgic, haha.
Yeah, my apologies, that's what I was referring to, but I guess at the time I just kinda mentioned those two together, haha. I meant to say something to mean "Well there's Firefox. And Chromium has an extension."
Yep. I never used the middleclick for pasting since my middle mouse button is wonky with this mouse, but I do use it to open tabs. It's the only thing I can use it for in the Steam browser since rightclick+new tab doesn't seem to recognize that it doesn't know what it's looking at and just opens an empty HTML, heh.
Fair enough. I guess I was thinking in terms of people developing were like a company who would be thinking of others' needs and listen to others and hear their spoken needs. Someone has to keep the Github page though. I don't know. It's just frustrating, I guess. At least I have Firefox.
Thanks for the thought though. My apologies for being so late with my response, I'll be frank: I was honestly expecting something much... more negative, considering my past experiences when voicing these sorts of things. That, and I'm quite introverted, and for the past while I've been often asked and messaged and bothered to where I just don't even wanna read forums and just be left to my own devices, whether it be working or otherwise. These sorts of topics are quite nice to have, however. They are also just taxing at the same time.