this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
266 points (96.5% liked)

Linux

54996 readers
626 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] yesman@lemmy.world 89 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There is an unintended benefit to putting an obstacle between people who don't know how to use the terminal and pasting code into it.

[–] pmk 25 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Expanding on this, we could make it so that root must use ed(1) to edit files?

[–] null@slrpnk.net 19 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"Ed is the standard text editor."

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

vi is so outdated, we use viii now. You're two versions behind!

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 4 points 1 month ago

Ha! Butterflies!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] crimsoncobalt@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Control+C is used to kill a process in the terminal and that shouldn't be overwritten. If it is, you'd have to create a totally separate key binding to kill a process. Seems unnecessarily complex when Control+Shift+C works just fine.

[–] hallettj@leminal.space 48 points 1 month ago (5 children)

The article doesn't suggest using Control+C. It talks about dedicated copy and paste key codes, and you can program your keyboard to map those codes to whatever keys you like. They suggest Fn+C.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 53 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] Damage@feddit.it 8 points 1 month ago

Holy shit can you guys read the article please? It's an existing standard and a dedicated keycode

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] elmicha@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

We could use Ctrl+Insert and Shift+Insert like in the last three decades, but some of these keyboards apparently forgot about the Insert key.

[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago

Well yeah but shift insert is annoying as hell since the keys are so far apart

[–] markstos@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I confirmed that these already supported a number of terminals plus QT and GTK. They could also be mapped to be more ergonomic with a programmable keyboard:

  • Control+Insert: Copy
  • Shift+Delete: Cut
  • Shift+Insert: Paste
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Overspark@feddit.nl 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Kitty has a setting that makes Ctrl-C copy text, but only if you've selected something. If you haven't it does a regular break. Best of both worlds!

[–] signofzeta@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Another KiTTY user! Can you share that setting?

[–] Overspark@feddit.nl 3 points 1 month ago

Had to look it up for you. I use (in kitty.conf):

map ctrl+c copy_and_clear_or_interrupt
map ctrl+v paste_from_clipboard

Obviously you only need the first one for the copy bit but having paste as well is nice.

[–] markstos@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Control+C is used to kill a process in the terminal and that shouldn’t be overwritten.

Agreed. The post didn't suggest that.

Seems unnecessarily complex when Control+Shift+C works just fine.

For people already using programmable keyboards global copy/paste shortcuts are a nice perk.

I spend nearly all my day in a browser or a terminal and as I use a terminal and browser that already support this, the effect is 99% complete.

[–] randy@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I feel like you may have misunderstood the article. It's talking about how support is increasing for dedicated Copy keys, and that programmable keyboards make it easy to use dedicated Copy keys. The article does not mention changing the behaviour of Ctrl-C.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Come on, having a 3-key combo for such a common task is a PITA. There's a reason people have been complaining about this for decades.

[–] markstos@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The first time you accidentally type Control-C into a terminal and cancel an important process when you meant to copy some text it becomes a PITA.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Exactly. I do it pretty regularly and I've been using Linux for 20 years.

And yet people here are still saying "no biggie". It's pure status quo bias.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Lucien@mander.xyz 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And I'm pretty sure this key combination predates copy and paste key combinations.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] markstos@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My patch to add Copy/Paste keycode support to the Cosmic Terminal was merged!

https://github.com/pop-os/cosmic-term/pull/481

[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As someone who likes Rust but dislikes the look of COSMIC, are there plans to allow theming?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] daggermoon@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Holy fucking shit. I just realized that's why Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V don't work in Micro. This has been eye opening.

[–] lefixxx@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I have been trying to bind ctrl c to copy in micro and alacrity, I can't find a way.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Honestly, this is a nice feature of macOS (or at least iTerm 2; I don’t use the official terminal). I know CTRL-C is used to kill processes and we all have that muscle memory but I usually try to change that on my personal Linux installs because I’ve hit it by mistake before.

I used to use CTRL+INSERT for copy and SHIFT+INSERT for paste but there’s usually no insert key on laptops or even small keyboards. It’s probably time to just adapt.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 month ago

⌘C and ⌘V work in the native MacOS terminal app as well.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

It’s the #1 thing that drives me crazy about Linux.

It seems obvious. You’ve got a Windows/Apple/Super key and a Control key. So you’d think Control would be for control characters and Windows/Apple/Super would be for application things.

I can understand Windows fucking this up, cuz the terminal experience is such a low priority. But Linux?

There’s some projects like Kinto and Toshy which try to fix it, but neither work on NixOS quite yet.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 3 points 1 month ago

I still use ctrl+ins and shift+ins every now and then. I've hit ctrl+shift+c a few times while in my browser (Vivaldi) which unfortunately is bound to "create note". Ctrl+ins is a great workaround than using an extra neuron when in a terminal to also hit shift when copying.

[–] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I've been using ctrl+c for copy and ctrl+v for paste for over a decade in my linux terminal by remapping the interrupt to ctrl+x.

It's basic ergonomics and user friendliness.

I do it on all my personal devices and servers.

Nothing bad happened in those ~15 years that I've been doing that. What the fuck are you arguing about?

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 month ago (7 children)

I might actually do that too, but not for ergonomics. I'm just going nuts with sometimes ctrl-c,. sometimes ctrl-shift-c, sometimes ctrl-ins

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] hexagonwin 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

selection autocopy and wheel/shift ins pasting is superior to all alternatives imo

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Centre click is a godsend though. I recently had to start using Windows again and I keep instinctively hitting it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] yaroto98@lemmy.org 9 points 1 month ago (6 children)

That's why we have mice copy/paste bindings on most systems too. Highlighting text auto copies, and scroll wheel click pastes. Not all do this, but many do and have for a while.

[–] markstos@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (8 children)

That’s a popular terminal feature, but I regularly get tripped up because my terminal has that behavior but my browser does not.

That’s what’s nice about a global solution.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Ctrl+Ins gang rise up

[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Wow. I haven't seen a Sun keyboard like that in .. geez forever. Whose were fun times. I was younger then.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] lascapi@jlai.lu 5 points 1 month ago

Nice !! I like the 'old new again' effect ^^

[–] sping 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I use a key remapper to give me the readline keys everywhere. Though I've used XKeysnail and xremap and they're both a bit flakey, so if anyone has better recommendations that work on X11 and Wayland, I'm all ears.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›