How to Disable Annoying Paste Function of Mouse Middle Button

If there is one thing I really hate about my current GNOME desktop environment is its default paste function mapped to the mouse middle button. This is simply so annoying that I was looking for a way to get rid of this. After some trials, I have found one that actually works very well, and I would like to share it with anyone who is also having this problem. This post is based on this and this.

First, install xinput package if already not installed.
$ sudo apt-get install -y xinput

Next, list input devices and look for your mouse:
$ xinput list | grep 'id='
⎡ Virtual core pointer                     id=2 [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer               id=4 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v1.0 id=11 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Microsoft Microsoft® Nano Transceiver v1.0 id=12 [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard             id=5 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                             id=6 [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                               id=7 [slave  keyboard (3)]
...

OK, so it tells me what input devices are connected. Under Virtual core pointer, I see my Microsoft Mouse, which is mapped to 11 and 12. In my case, it was the first device:

$ xinput get-button-map 11

3 2 1 5 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

The second number represents mapping of the middle button, so I simply disable it by setting it to 0:

$ xinput set-button-map 11 3 0 1

That's it. I now confirm that the middle mouse button no longer functions! Well, I want to keep it this way all the time, so I created a script
$ echo "xinput set-button-map 11 3 0 1" > ~/disable_middle.sh
$ chmod u+x ~/disable_middle.sh

I made it execute every time GNOME starts up by creating diable-middle-button.desktop file in ~/.config/autostart/ folder with the following
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=~/disable_middle.sh
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_US]=disable-middle-button
Name=disable-middle-button
Comment[en_US]=
Comment=

Now, your mouse middle button will be disable every time you start up GNOME!