Sunday 20 September 2009

Linux Basics - Copy/Paste in Terminal

One of the things about linux which really irritates me is the complete lack of documentation of the first things you have to learn. It is as if once people learn these lessons, they do not give them a second thought and assume that the next generation will also absorb them by osmosis.

In a valiant attempt to stop that happening, I present some basics:

To copy text in a terminal window, do not highlight it and press CTRL+C. God no, that would be - oh what's the word - fucking logical. Instead highlight the text and either right click and select copy, or press CTRL+ALT+C.

To paste the text you have just copied, do not try CTRL+V ... etc ..., press CTRL+ALT+V.

1 comment:

  1. Heh. Wrong advice (keystrokes are not needed), but cute to see someone from a Windows background struggle with this. I actually learned how to do cut&paste, not by osmosis, but from the gpm manpage. Left click to set cursor at start, right click to mark end, and middle to paste. The only annoyance with Xwindows is the apps where this only halfway works, like Firefox, with a foot in both worlds, and unable to please either.

    ReplyDelete