Xterm – How to Copy Text in Awesome, Debian, VirtualBox

clipboardvirtualboxx11xterm

I ran the minimal Debian installation inside a VirtualBox instance, installed X11 and Awesome window manager manually (without any custom configuration yet) and installed VirtualBox additions as well (and enabled shared clipboard in settings). However, copy-pasting text from xterm terminal still doesn't seem to work: CTRL+C is sent as a signal to a terminal, and Shift+Insert inserts the text that I had selected (which probably means that it got copied to some buffer somehow), but it is still unavailable from the host operating system.

Best Answer

X11 uses two buffers: PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD. To copy/paste to the CLIPBOARD buffer you can often use CTRL-C and CTRL-V. You can insert to the PRIMARY buffer by selecting a text and paste from it by pressing the middle mouse button.

If you want to use the CLIPBOARD buffer, put this in your ~/.Xresources file and use Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V to copy/paste from/to the CLIPBOARD buffer in xterm:

xterm*VT100.Translations: #override \
                 Ctrl Shift <Key>V:    insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\
                 Ctrl Shift <Key>C:    copy-selection(CLIPBOARD)

You need to run xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources after putting that into the file.

Related Solutions

How to copy text to xterm

As noted by yasouser, middle-click is the standard way to paste the selection buffer in linux. This buffer gets written every time anything is selected with no need to initiate a copy command. In gtk based or influenced apps, there is usually a keybinding for this as well. Shift+Insert

In most Desktop Environments there is also a copy buffer that is separate from the selection buffer. Getting items into this usully requires a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl+C or menu selection, and pastes with Ctrl+V or a menu. These bindings are program specific and may varry, although they usually follow toolkit standards.

On KDE there is often a clipboard buffer configured by default in the tray that handles access to several recent clipboard items. This sort of function can be added to gnome and other environments as well.

Copy / paste text selections between tmux and the clipboard

Use the following tmux.conf with copy-pipe in the new versions of tmux (1.8+):

set -g mouse on
# To copy:
bind-key -n -t emacs-copy M-w copy-pipe "xclip -i -sel p -f | xclip -i -sel c "

# To paste:
bind-key -n C-y run "xclip -o | tmux load-buffer - ; tmux paste-buffer"

prefix+[ into copy-mode
select content with mouse(hold)
M-w to copy that part into system clipboard
C-y the paste it inside tmux, C-v to paste it inside other regular application like web browser.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to copy text to xterm

Copy / paste text selections between tmux and the clipboard

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