I want to merge the 2 Linux clipboards

Linux has 2 clipboards… PRIMARY, which is set when selecting text via the mouse and CLIPBOARD, which is set the MS-way (Ctrl-c or Edit > Copy).  Anyone know how I can configure gnome-terminal to set both PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD when I select text via the mouse?  I’m running Ubuntu 6.10.

I’m sure its something that needs to be set in ~/.Xresources, but I can’t figure it out.

5 thoughts on “I want to merge the 2 Linux clipboards

  1. Joel (who is not saying this isn't annoying)

    “ICCCM is a standards collection where the following information interchange mechanisms are defined: Primary Selection, Secondary Selection, Clipboard Selection and Cut-Buffers. X-based applications can communicate within each other using Selections which allow to select and copy text regions from one application to another. The primary selection is used e.g. when selecting a text region with the left mouse button under Netscape. The secondary selection can be used independently of the primary selection; emacs uses the secondary selection for erasing text without changing the cursor position. The Clipboard Selection gets activated when cutting or copying text into a special buffer (the clipboard), the contents of this buffer can be transferred afterwards to another application. The xclipboard application allows you to check its contents. Whereas the selection mechanisms establish a link between a source and a target application, the Cut-Buffers are based on a common area provided by the X server. This way, a X client may introduce information into a cut buffer which can be retrieved later on by any other X client. X allows use up to eight cut buffers. With the xcutsel tool, the contents of a primary selection can be copied into a cut buffer or vice versa.
    Both KDE and GNOME do support those protocols and mechanisms as they’re defined at the X layer.”
    http://www.xfree86.org/current/xcutsel.1.html
    http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/02/1832201

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  2. David Jonas

    I realize you don’t know who I am, but I started reading your blog from your dovecot ML posts. A word of advice: don’t merge your clipboards! It took me a while to get used to it, but when I had to switch from linux to Mac for work, or when I use my Windows notebook I find it difficult to work with just one clipboard. It becomes almost essential once you get used to it. But perhaps getting used to it is not the best idea if you’re OS hopping, as I’m sure you are. So disregard this entire post :).

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  3. Pingback: Two updates… | Bill Boebel

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