10 ms·

Progress towards universal Copy/Paste shortcuts on Linux

164 points by uncircle 1y ago

meitham 1y ago
I like how Apple introduced the CMD key, with copy/paste linked to it in the terminal, leaving CTRL to work as intended. Even outside the terminal basic emacs key binding work as intended, such as c-k c-u etc
- npteljes 1y ago
  Yeah, that is the most sensible choice. OS key to interact with the OS, rest of the keys to interact with the application.
- rafram 1y ago
  Non-Mac keyboards have a meta / “Windows” key as well, usually sitting there doing nothing.
  - samlinnfer 1y ago
    On Linux it is often already used for window manager specific shortcuts.
  - cycomanic 1y ago
    They are the most common modifier key for tiling window managers. It's very likely one of the most often pressed key in my setup.
- lucideer 1y ago
  I use Toshy along with an Apple keyboard to work around Linux distros' unfortunate Windowsiness here but I really really wish someone would release a fully fledged distro or DE put together with Apple keyboards in mind. There's a lot of things about Apple I dislike but it's clear Microsoft's overloading of Ctrl for GUI shortcuts was a move made with complete disregard for terminal users, & one that's resulted in decades of pain for anyone regularly switching between GUI & terminal contexts, & I have to give it to Apple that Cmd was clearly designed to respect, retain & augment optimal terminal use.
  - koiueo 1y ago
    OTOH, Microsoft's introduction of "menu accelerators" (Alt+*) is an incredible productivity booster (which luckily most Linux graphical toolkits have adopted). I got to appreciate it only after I had to use macOS at work. Somehow I got used to Ctrl workarounds in terminal emulators (just add shift). But the lack of accelerators bugs me immensely.
    - lucideer 1y ago
      I've always found menu accelerators odd. I find them a little too dependent on individual app developers word choices to have any kind of consistency across apps I use, plus I tend not to use menus for anything other than infrequent settings changes. Given that they haven't seemed substantially different to macos displaying annotations for bound shortcuts within the menus. (admittedly I use mac in work & my personal computers at home have all been Linux since my Windows 2003 workstation died, so my knowledge of modern windows apps & their attached accelerators is rusty & I'm probably biased here)
      - koiueo 1y ago
        The last windows I used was XP. But accelerators do work in Linux. And they are not just about menus: in any modal window I can do Alt+O for Ok. And this paradigm allows discoverability, I don't need to memorize shortcuts, I just hold Alt and look for underscored letters – that's how GUI should be IMO. It's not perfect, and if I were designing UI from scratch, I'd made this feature modal instead of allocating entire physical key for that (like they do hints in vim-like browsers).
  - biehl 1y ago
    Also lovely! I was going to look for somthing like Toshy - https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy
- AnonymousPlanet 1y ago
  That's an arrangement I also really appreciate. But the origins are different from what most might assume. Apple introduced copy and paste in 1983 using the command key. Microsoft later copied the idea using the control key because PCs lacked a command key [1]. X had super, meta, hyper keys before the PC's stunted set of modifiers became a standard [2]. Microsoft and the PC are rarely the origins of things, mainly because CP/M, DOS and later Windows were poor, amateurish, and incomplete copies of other systems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button)
- louthy 1y ago
  > I like how Apple introduced the CMD key, with copy/paste linked to it in As someone who switches between macOS and Linux every day, the change of control-key from CTRL to CMD is hella annoying. I am always pressing the wrong combo on macOS.
  - npteljes 1y ago
    I completely agree. If only Windows also had WinKey+C/X/V as shortcuts, it would make so much sense in other Windows software too. Same with ALT+TAB and ALT+F4, CTRL+SPACE etc, these should also be handled by the win key. Then the Win/Cmd key would be assigned to OS functions, and the rest of them could be assigned to application functions, providing a clean separation.
    - childintime 1y ago
      Ctrl is different. Alt and Win don't cancel themselves when released, they are modal, and modal sucks. Ctrl is the only safe key besides Fn, so repurpose Fn if you must.
cncjchsue7 1y ago
We gonna get support for keys that don't exist on any modern keyboards, don't worry though you can remap them or bind them to change mplicated macro layers in your expensive mechanical keyboards. Do all that and you won't need those two lines of xinit.rc
- cryptonector 1y ago
  Has no one noticed that ctrl-Ins/shift-Ins are almost universal, and they work in Windows and on Linux?
  - swiftcoder 1y ago
    Ins just doesn't exist on a lot of laptop keyboards, which kind of limits adoption.
    - trinix912 1y ago
      Even when the Ins and Del are there, they're at the far right top of the keyboard, which requires moving the hand to reach them every time. It used to be less of a hassle when those shortcuts first appeared (with IBM CUA), as Ins/Del were just slightly above the arrow keys that you'd use to select the text prior to copying/cutting it anyways.
      - cryptonector 1y ago
        On my smaller keyboards Ins is never far from anywhere :) But also, I use sticky keys (the accessibility feature), so even on my larger keyboard I don't find moving my hand to reach the Ins key to be a problem. If I still had the real bad habit of long ago of using ulnar deviations to hit multiple keys together though, then the Ins key would probably hurt my hands, but then back then all typing hurt my hands so...
      - amadeuspagel 1y ago
        Isn't it healthier to use keyboard shortcuts where the modifier key and the modified key use different hands?
saurik 1y ago
ctrl/shift-insert?
- cryptonector 1y ago
  Rite? But no, apparently you and I are the only ones who know this.
- koiueo 1y ago
  With many laptop vendors placing the insert key in the least ergonomic location or on FN layer, it's not really an option, unfortunately
  - saurik 1y ago
    I don't even have an fn key, much less an insert, on my hacked-up Chromebook, so I have right-alt set to alt-gr and I mapped alt-gr+enter to insert (and alt-gr+backspace to delete) in my X key map, and, even still, it honesty feels very ergonomic to hit ctrl/shift-insert? (FWIW, the real problem is that the behavior is inconsistent with respect to what it pastes from :/. Notably, Firefox does something unusual and there has been a bug open for over two decades to fix it... before you say "well then, go submit a patch", someone did, lol omg.)
- ragnarook 1y ago
  [dead]
cryptonector 1y ago
I use ctrl-Ins/shift-Ins and it works in my terminals and in the browser. I've not checked if it works in other apps because ctrl-c/ctrl-v always work in other apps. I'd be happy if ctrl-Ins/shift-Ins just always worked; I don't need innovation here.
- wongogue 1y ago
  Innovation would be to actually have that key on most laptop keyboards.
  - jorams 1y ago
    Almost every laptop that isn't a MacBook has an insert key. The only other manufacturer I've seen leave it out is HP, and then only on some models.
    - cryptonector 1y ago
      Even my tiniest keyboards have it!
- jsnell 1y ago
  For the first couple of pages I thought that the article was a gag, and {C,S}-Insert was going to be the punchline.
- uncircle 1y ago
  I use Alt-W and Ctrl-Y in the terminal, because I already use these to copy/paste on Emacs, and none of the CLI tools I use require these shortcuts. The only issue is remembering to use Ctrl-C/V on Firefox, unless someone knows a way to remap its keybinds.
- slim 1y ago
  I just select text and press middle mouse button to paste (three fingers tap on trackpads). it works 99% of the time
koiueo 1y ago
The universality of copy/paste is overrated. It's literally just adding shift in terminal emulators, no biggie. A bigger UX problem (on Linux) imo is the multitude of clipboards, we have x11, vim... Those can be synchronized or not, they manifest different behaviors... And btw while apple is often offered as some golden standard for key bindings, I think the situation there is much (MUCH) worse: apps often intercept and handle common combinations on their own, with unclear precedence, which leads to non-deterministic behavior and a complete mess if you want to override any standard combination.
- echelon 1y ago
  > The universality of copy/paste is overrated. It's literally just adding shift in terminal emulators, no biggie. I don't think anything has caused me more pain with computing than this. And I'm including dealing with Python dependencies.
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  > A bigger UX problem (on Linux) imo is the multitude of clipboards, we have x11, vim... Those can be synchronized or not, they manifest different behaviors... I would probably like vim's + register to always sync with the X/Wayland clipboard where possible², but it is perhaps worth pointing out that vim has (at least?¹) 28 "clipboard" slots (+, *, a-z) and this is a feature not a bug. Having accepted that, I would likewise point out that X having a clipboard and selection buffer is an intentional feature. I'd support universally supporting one single shared clipboard that everything uses properly by default, but I wouldn't want to limit the other options to do it. ¹Edit: Nope, much more than that: https://learnvim.irian.to/basics/registers https://learnvim.irian.to/basics/registers ²Edit: Oh, yes, I do agree that I would be in favor of making that the default register as well so that ex. just `yy`/`p` used it.
  - koiueo 1y ago
    > supporting one single shared clipboard that everything uses properly by defaul Agree. I got to realize how convenient it is to have one shared clipboard by default after I tried (doom)emacs: behaves like vim, has registers like vim, but default register uses the clipboard. I can still use all the registers as much as I like, but the default one is global and can be shared between apps. I now configure my vim like this. I still miss this, however, when working occasionally without a graphical session. Perhaps there's a solution, but I haven't yet bothered to look for it.
antonvs 1y ago
“The Year of the Linux Desktop” will be when copy/pasted is solved.
fmajid 1y ago
Much easier would be to have all apps treat C-S-C as copy and C-S-V as paste like the terminal does. In Chrome this starts the inspector. I changed jobs and went from a Mac to Linux and muscle memory keeps tripping me.
- camdroidw 1y ago
  Hopefully not UI designer!
mockingloris 1y ago
Been a linux user since 2016 when I found an Ubuntu 16 installation CD in a drawer wirh old books. The thing for me is having ctrl+v paste without formatting. (If I need to retain formatting, I will gladly do ctrl+shift+v) Maybe it's just me but, I'd gladly scroll endlessly looking at pictures of old keyboards / HID devices. (I use a Fellows KU-9938 Split Keyboard and a Kensignton)
globular-toast 1y ago
Not enough people know that you can just select text then middle click somewhere to paste it. No keys required and yes it works with all terminal emulators I've tried. This has been default behaviour on Linux desktops for as long as I've used it (decades).
- SkiFire13 1y ago
  The fact there is a totally different way to copy text in the terminal is the issue, it just breaks the common mental model. Even worse, this shortcut _requires using a mouse_, and not just for copying, also for selecting!
  - spauldo 1y ago
    X has had two clipboards for longer than I've been using it, which is nearly three decades. If your mental model of clipboard interaction only involves a single clipboard, and you use X, your mental model is simply wrong. Sure, you could change X to match your mental model, but now you've broken the mental models of everyone who actually learned to use the software. And one more useful feature that makes X nice to use gets sacrificed to please the people who came from Windows but desperately want everything to work like Windows.
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    How would you be copy/pasting in a terminal emulator without a mouse? Any time I've seen someone do it it's: mouse to select, keyboard to copy, mouse to select other place, keyboard to paste. I cringe every time because it could be just: mouse to select, mouse to select and paste it in the other place with one click.
- Tor3 1y ago
  The problem with this (and to me it's a super annoying problem - marking and pasting with left and middle button is super fast and efficient) is that some browsers (or maybe it's the toolkits behind them) start to either ignore this functionality or force you to repeat the action before it works.
eviks 1y ago
> To trigger the copy or paste keyboard actions, software has to bind these key codes to actions. Software toolkits or apps themselves are responsible for this. If only the universal subset of communication maintained by the OS were actual actions
dajtxx 1y ago
I used stty to make interrupt ktrl-k, then configured the terminal app to make copy/paste ctrl-c/ctrl-v. I use copy/paste more than I use interrupt. I hated MacOS keyboard shortcuts at first, but cmd-c/cmd-v do work around this problem.
- biehl 1y ago
  Lovely. Do you have some tips for that? Something you put in bashrc?
audiodude 1y ago
While we're talking keyboards, what about emoji? Every messaging app has a different interface for them, some like Discord and Whatsapp allow you to use :smile: shortcuts, but the enumerated names are different across apps. I've occasionally gotten a dedicated OS emoji picker to show up on my Mac, but I don't know how. On Ubuntu Cinnamon, I managed to create keyboard shortcuts for the 8 or so emoji I use the most by binding something called a "compose" key and modifying a .XCompose file, but it still took other config file gymnastics to make it persist between X sessions.
- 4lejandrito 1y ago
  Control + Command + Space
  - audiodude 1y ago
    Crazy, thanks!
  - addandsubtract 1y ago
    You can also bind it to the fn key on a MacBook.
- SkiFire13 1y ago
  > I've occasionally gotten a dedicated OS emoji picker to show up on my Mac, but I don't know how. On mine it shows up when I accidentally press the Fn key, which is very inconveniently placed where every other keyboard places the Ctrl key...
- numpad0 1y ago
  That's just regular keyboard for CJK languages. "today" -> "2025/08/15 Fri", "cry" -> ":crying_face:", etc. It's just small extension to regular "keycodes to full UTF-8 gibberish" process that input method editors handle. There's nothing wrong if someone make ones for en, fr, de, in my opinion. Correction-plus-conversations like "hors douvray" to "hors-d'œuvre" in one key is going go be useful.
- TheAceOfHearts 1y ago
weinzierl 1y ago
I think Apple did the right thing by keeping GUI shortcuts separate from terminal control codes. I never understood why the Linux GUI world ran blindly after Windows and emulated every pattern, good or bad. And yes, I know that Ctrl-C/Ctrl-P for Copy/Paste are much older and came out of IBM's CUA and SAA initiatives. What matters is that with the Mac we had a clear role model how to handle this aspect of GUI cleanly but me missed it. While we’re at it, I’m still on the lookout for IBM’s original SAA and CUA documentation. If anyone has these lying around, I’d be interested
- timuckun 1y ago
  Probably because of Miguel and his fascination with windows.
- Someone 1y ago
  > I think Apple did the right thing by keeping GUI shortcuts separate from terminal control codes They are separate because they ditched terminal shortcuts and later begrudgingly brought them back. The original Mac didn’t have a control key. They added it back in 1987 because of pressure of terminal emulator programs.
  - weinzierl 1y ago
    You mean they successfully resisted the temptation to repurpose Ctrl, even though they were sure never to need it again. They did the right thing by introducing a new key for a new thing.
- Dwedit 1y ago
  Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins, Shift+Del are the traditional shortcut keys that predate Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X. They still work on many Windows programs.
  - weinzierl 1y ago
    The problem is not the lack of alternatives but the embrace, extend and extinguish of established Ctrl-Key combination standards. I am not angry at Microsoft because that is what they do. I am disappointed of Linux that it followed suit. Besides that, every Mac has Ctrl and Option, the vast majority of users does not have dedicated Ins and Del anymore and I doubt they know how to use the Fn combos for that.
WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
Wouldn't it be darn nice, though, if there was a universal mechanism for apps to announce which shortcut they have available and a centralized way to configure them all? For example, I was able to assign copy/paste keys to the corresponding actions in the GTK keybindings, and it worked like charm, except in Chrome. That is, in Chrome, web content respected these keybindings, but the browser UI didn't. So I could use the keys on textareas and inputs all I wanted, but paste into the address bar? Nooooo, BECAUSE FUCKING CHROME HAS THEM HARDCODED per platform! (However, in Firefox it worked just fine across the whole UI.)
v9v 1y ago
In Emacs if CUA mode is on, C-c behaves as copy if any text is selected (and if no other keys have been pressed within a short time). To send a C-c when text is selected you do a C-S-c instead. Similarly in Windows Terminal I remember C-c works as copy without any issue (it deselects the text with the first C-c IIRC, so if you do two C-c's with text selected you copy and then send an interrupt). Do any linux terminals implement anything like this? Why resort to adding new keys to keyboards?
enricozb 1y ago
I just remap my terminal to have Ctrl-X to send SIGHUP, and Ctrl-C to copy. X looks more like a kill to me anyways.
deknos 1y ago
instead of some universal shortcuts, i would prefer to have another meta key, that we finally can do another-meta+ctrl+alt+ascii for more combinations :D universal shortcuts are overrated and get in your way anyway :D
kid64 1y ago
What about cut?
- uncircle 1y ago
  Cut also has a dedicated keycode. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44911608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44911608
sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago
I thought "finally, Linux is adopting CUA", then realized this was a stealthy ad selling me remappable keyboards.
Tor3 1y ago
We already had a universal copy/paste in Linux: Mark with left mouse button, paste with middle button. This used to work for just about everything. However, lately browsers started to ignore this when I mark the URL and try to paste it elsewhere, for example. Instead I get the old clipboard. I have to use the left button multiple times - and it works. Falling back to Windows-style copy/paste, either with keys or pull-down menus with "copy" and later "paste" is, to me, a huge, inefficient step backwards and it's frustrating me every day. Addon: For purely non-mouse work, think serial terminal, I for one want Emacs bindings. Though that's typically configurable for the shell anyway, so everyone can choose what they prefer.
- nullc 1y ago
  I think the multiple clipboards are great. My only regret is that there aren't more of them. Three would be excellent. But having multiple is very good, both for the pattern of "paste one thing over and over again, interspersed with copying and pasting other things" and for the pattern of "copy 1; copy 2; paste 1; paste 2" or "copy1; copy2; paste 2; paste 1" with only a single application switch. When firefox screwed up the address bar so that the left-click/middle-click didn't work right was easily the worst step down in computing for me in modern history. Initially you could recover the non-chrome like behavior with a preference but they eventually broke that too.
- Propelloni 1y ago
  > We already had a universal copy/paste in Linux: Mark with left mouse button, paste with middle button. We still have it, at least for text. I just copied the little quote above with left mouse highlight, middle mouse paste while writing this comment in Firefox in Gnome 48 with Wayland. I use it a lot on the terminal. What doesn't appear to work anymore (at least in Wayland) is copying a selection as a bitmap into a bitmap editor, ie. paint. Only a few decades ago that used to work, I remember that.
  - Tor3 1y ago
    We still have it, it's just that we don't have it everywhere anymore. Which truly breaks up the workflow, or how I do things.
voidUpdate 1y ago
With the author's Corne keymap, wouldn't holding down the backspace key to access the "raise" layer start deleting text?
- rgoulter 1y ago
  It's a 'tap-hold' key, so the "tap" functionality is activated separately from its "hold" functionality. Though, in order to get the same effect as "hold down backspace", e.g. QMK lets you have "tap then hold" as a way of invoking that functionality.
atmanactive 1y ago
So what ARE the key codes for dedicated copy and paste keys?
- uncircle 1y ago
  On Linux, they map to XF86Copy and XF86Paste. There's also XF86Cut and XF86Undo. You can bind these on Emacs, for example.
dsr_ 1y ago
I have a mouse with an interesting number of buttons. (Elecom EX-G Pro; I recommend it if you have large hands and like thumb trackballs.) So I ran xev to see what buttons they mapped to, and chose: "xvkbd -text "\[XF86Copy]"" m:0x0 + b:8 "xvkbd -text "\[XF86Paste]"" m:0x0 + b:9 which my fingers have learned work everywhere except Chrome. Thanks, Google.
TacticalCoder 1y ago
[dead]
account42 1y ago
Linux already has (or had) a universal copy paste: selection and middle click.
- jmclnx 1y ago
  Maybe depends upon the DE/WM you are using. UN*X has 2 copy/paste buffers and they both work on Slackware with a Window Manager under X11 as you mentioned. I think the same is true with DE. Is that not the case with Wayland ? Anyway, I always liked how these worked when compared to Microsoft. Again, I do not what to see this change. Plus we already have enough keys on our keyboard. I think Microsoft is in the process of adding an AI key, crazy. I do not look forward to 1000 keys on a laptop keyboard, already I fat finger the current keyboards too much.
eqvinox 1y ago
It's ancillary to this post, but I don't understand this obsession with "programmable" keyboards, at least for plain remapping of keys. There's entirely no point in doing it; the keymap / layout (not application key bindings, before that) is what gives keys meaning to begin with. Why would you care about what keycode a keyboard sends for some key? The only thing that matters is NKRO, if you want to remap modifiers; on non-NKRO keyboards the modifier keys are different in that they don't clash with other keys. If the keyboard has some macro function, okay, I can see that being useful, in rare circumstances (in most cases you could also just do that in software.) Meanwhile, the only way to get a keyboard that has 2 physical keys in the space where the wide caps lock key is on a "normal" keyboard is to build it myself. That key is the one completely useless key in the "core" of a regular layout, and I'd really like to be able to put 2 custom functions there (rather than just 1).
- uncircle 1y ago
  The keymap functionality in your OS is a hack because most keyboards are not programmable. I use a split keyboard in a Colemak layout, and it's programmed to send the correct keys despite them being in "different" places compared to a normal keyboard, so I don't have to mess with keymap switching on the operating system. I just plug it in and it works. Also what you deem obsession is called ergonomics. Since a programmer uses a keyboard 100% of the time they spend in front of a computer, optimising for ergonomics is a great time investment. My symbol layer is so much more sane and comfortable than having to use Shift-number like an ape (no offence). In the home row under my strongest fingers, for example, I have "():_= which are the most common symbols in popular programming languages. My two thumbs are not wasted to press an humongous space bar, but have access to modifiers such as Shift and Ctrl instead of having to use my pinkies. The secret to not losing muscle memory when you have to go back programming like an ape on a regular keyboard, is to choose a very different physical layout (like an ortholinear split keyboard) for your programmable keyboard. Then you're just learning another "instrument" which is spatially laid out differently than what you are used to, retaining your memory of QWERTY on a regular keyboard.
  - eqvinox 1y ago
johnea 1y ago
Double-click then middle-click How much more universal could it get? The mark/splat functionality is one of the things that drew me to early linux...
p0w3n3d 1y ago
The best way to solve this is to use win+c for copy and win+v as paste, as it's Mac doing. However making this ubiquitous in the system is impossible, that's why when I moved to Mac in my work, I have trouble using Linux in my laptop
sombragris 1y ago
Ctrl-Ins for copy, Shift-Ins for paste, is something that works everywhere in a graphical desktop, including my (KDE Plasma 6 Konsolepart) terminal. AFAICT the clipboard is the same.
deepsun 1y ago
One thing I like is to set CapsLock to "switch to English". No need to think what language I'm at, just click it idempotently. Besides, CapsLock is the most useless key anyway.
wltr 1y ago
For those running Sway on a MacBook, here you go: ``` # Copy-Paste re-implementation for Mac Keyboard set $mod Mod4 bindsym --to-code $mod+z exec wtype -P XF86Undo bindsym --to-code $mod+Shift+z exec wtype -P XF86Redo bindsym --to-code $mod+x exec wtype -P XF86Cut bindsym --to-code $mod+c exec wtype -P XF86Copy bindsym --to-code $mod+v exec wtype -P XF86Paste ``` Where mod is the cmd key. It works well in most apps. At least in those I care about (terminal, browser, vim). Took me a very long time to find this solution, as a macOS refugee. Not necessarily a MacBook, by the way. I have an Apple Keyboard with my PC (just a great keyboard I enjoy), so it works there too.
- tmtvl 1y ago
  For future reference, on HN you can format code snippets by indenting it (that is, to say, indenting every line) by two spaces: # Copy-Paste re-implementation for Mac Keyboard set $mod Mod4 bindsym --to-code $mod+z exec wtype -P XF86Undo bindsym --to-code $mod+Shift+z exec wtype -P XF86Redo bindsym --to-code $mod+x exec wtype -P XF86Cut bindsym --to-code $mod+c exec wtype -P XF86Copy bindsym --to-code $mod+v exec wtype -P XF86Paste
  - wltr 1y ago
    Oh, thanks, I didn’t know how to do that, and since you fixed it already, I’m going to keep it as it is, for others to know too.
zahlman 1y ago
> But what if there were hidden shortcut combos for copy and paste on Linux that work across most apps without adding any additional software or configuration? By the end of 2025, this will be the case, and many apps already support them. Here's the scoop! Really? What's the rationale here? > The two most popular toolkits are GTK and QT. GTK added support the copy and paste keyboards in January 2025. QT also added support for copy and paste key codes the same month. I'm not sure of the first released version of the GTK toolkit that will contain the fix. For QT, it will be QT 6.10, scheduled for release in September 2025. Together, this will cover many apps built for Gnome and KDE as well as others that use the same toolkits. ... Oh. No, I'm afraid that's not how the Linux ecosystem works. There are still GTK2-related packages in the current Ubuntu repos, and QT5 is still quite popular from what I can tell.
mixmastamyk 1y ago
I wouldn’t mind an apple command key on PCs, but plug a Mac keyboard in and GUIs generally configure it as “super” usually meaning window actions rather than commands. If we could set that as a command key under the thumb I’d like that.
paolomainardi 1y ago
MacOS has for me the best basic keybindings even thanks to the keyboard hardware design and the fn button placed on the left side, which is the right one, as it opens the door to have home/end/pgup/pgdown with fn + arrows, and high ie perfect for 65% keyboards, I’ll never understood why pc keyboard and mech ones have the fn on the right side, totally useless. Another thing MacOS did it right, cmd+c/v for copy/paste. Anyway, I talked about this here: https://www.paolomainardi.com/posts/linux-remapping-keys-with-xremap/ https://www.paolomainardi.com/posts/linux-remapping-keys-wit... and how to remap with Xremap.

164 points by uncircle 1y ago

I like how Apple introduced the CMD key, with copy/paste linked to it in the terminal, leaving CTRL to work as intended. Even outside the terminal basic emacs key binding work as intended, such as c-k c-u etc

npteljes 1y ago
Yeah, that is the most sensible choice. OS key to interact with the OS, rest of the keys to interact with the application.
rafram 1y ago
Non-Mac keyboards have a meta / “Windows” key as well, usually sitting there doing nothing.
- samlinnfer 1y ago
  On Linux it is often already used for window manager specific shortcuts.
- cycomanic 1y ago
  They are the most common modifier key for tiling window managers. It's very likely one of the most often pressed key in my setup.
lucideer 1y ago
I use Toshy along with an Apple keyboard to work around Linux distros' unfortunate Windowsiness here but I really really wish someone would release a fully fledged distro or DE put together with Apple keyboards in mind. There's a lot of things about Apple I dislike but it's clear Microsoft's overloading of Ctrl for GUI shortcuts was a move made with complete disregard for terminal users, & one that's resulted in decades of pain for anyone regularly switching between GUI & terminal contexts, & I have to give it to Apple that Cmd was clearly designed to respect, retain & augment optimal terminal use.
- koiueo 1y ago
  OTOH, Microsoft's introduction of "menu accelerators" (Alt+*) is an incredible productivity booster (which luckily most Linux graphical toolkits have adopted). I got to appreciate it only after I had to use macOS at work. Somehow I got used to Ctrl workarounds in terminal emulators (just add shift). But the lack of accelerators bugs me immensely.
  - lucideer 1y ago
    I've always found menu accelerators odd. I find them a little too dependent on individual app developers word choices to have any kind of consistency across apps I use, plus I tend not to use menus for anything other than infrequent settings changes. Given that they haven't seemed substantially different to macos displaying annotations for bound shortcuts within the menus. (admittedly I use mac in work & my personal computers at home have all been Linux since my Windows 2003 workstation died, so my knowledge of modern windows apps & their attached accelerators is rusty & I'm probably biased here)
    - koiueo 1y ago
      The last windows I used was XP. But accelerators do work in Linux. And they are not just about menus: in any modal window I can do Alt+O for Ok. And this paradigm allows discoverability, I don't need to memorize shortcuts, I just hold Alt and look for underscored letters – that's how GUI should be IMO. It's not perfect, and if I were designing UI from scratch, I'd made this feature modal instead of allocating entire physical key for that (like they do hints in vim-like browsers).
- biehl 1y ago
  Also lovely! I was going to look for somthing like Toshy - https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy https://github.com/RedBearAK/toshy
AnonymousPlanet 1y ago
That's an arrangement I also really appreciate. But the origins are different from what most might assume. Apple introduced copy and paste in 1983 using the command key. Microsoft later copied the idea using the control key because PCs lacked a command key [1]. X had super, meta, hyper keys before the PC's stunted set of modifiers became a standard [2]. Microsoft and the PC are rarely the origins of things, mainly because CP/M, DOS and later Windows were poor, amateurish, and incomplete copies of other systems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_key_(keyboard_button)
louthy 1y ago
> I like how Apple introduced the CMD key, with copy/paste linked to it in As someone who switches between macOS and Linux every day, the change of control-key from CTRL to CMD is hella annoying. I am always pressing the wrong combo on macOS.
- npteljes 1y ago
  I completely agree. If only Windows also had WinKey+C/X/V as shortcuts, it would make so much sense in other Windows software too. Same with ALT+TAB and ALT+F4, CTRL+SPACE etc, these should also be handled by the win key. Then the Win/Cmd key would be assigned to OS functions, and the rest of them could be assigned to application functions, providing a clean separation.
  - childintime 1y ago
    Ctrl is different. Alt and Win don't cancel themselves when released, they are modal, and modal sucks. Ctrl is the only safe key besides Fn, so repurpose Fn if you must.

cncjchsue7 1y ago

We gonna get support for keys that don't exist on any modern keyboards, don't worry though you can remap them or bind them to change mplicated macro layers in your expensive mechanical keyboards. Do all that and you won't need those two lines of xinit.rc

cryptonector 1y ago
Has no one noticed that ctrl-Ins/shift-Ins are almost universal, and they work in Windows and on Linux?
- swiftcoder 1y ago
  Ins just doesn't exist on a lot of laptop keyboards, which kind of limits adoption.
  - trinix912 1y ago
    Even when the Ins and Del are there, they're at the far right top of the keyboard, which requires moving the hand to reach them every time. It used to be less of a hassle when those shortcuts first appeared (with IBM CUA), as Ins/Del were just slightly above the arrow keys that you'd use to select the text prior to copying/cutting it anyways.
    - cryptonector 1y ago
      On my smaller keyboards Ins is never far from anywhere :) But also, I use sticky keys (the accessibility feature), so even on my larger keyboard I don't find moving my hand to reach the Ins key to be a problem. If I still had the real bad habit of long ago of using ulnar deviations to hit multiple keys together though, then the Ins key would probably hurt my hands, but then back then all typing hurt my hands so...
    - amadeuspagel 1y ago
      Isn't it healthier to use keyboard shortcuts where the modifier key and the modified key use different hands?

saurik 1y ago

ctrl/shift-insert?

cryptonector 1y ago
Rite? But no, apparently you and I are the only ones who know this.
koiueo 1y ago
With many laptop vendors placing the insert key in the least ergonomic location or on FN layer, it's not really an option, unfortunately
- saurik 1y ago
  I don't even have an fn key, much less an insert, on my hacked-up Chromebook, so I have right-alt set to alt-gr and I mapped alt-gr+enter to insert (and alt-gr+backspace to delete) in my X key map, and, even still, it honesty feels very ergonomic to hit ctrl/shift-insert? (FWIW, the real problem is that the behavior is inconsistent with respect to what it pastes from :/. Notably, Firefox does something unusual and there has been a bug open for over two decades to fix it... before you say "well then, go submit a patch", someone did, lol omg.)
ragnarook 1y ago
[dead]

cryptonector 1y ago

I use ctrl-Ins/shift-Ins and it works in my terminals and in the browser. I've not checked if it works in other apps because ctrl-c/ctrl-v always work in other apps. I'd be happy if ctrl-Ins/shift-Ins just always worked; I don't need innovation here.

wongogue 1y ago
Innovation would be to actually have that key on most laptop keyboards.
- jorams 1y ago
  Almost every laptop that isn't a MacBook has an insert key. The only other manufacturer I've seen leave it out is HP, and then only on some models.
  - cryptonector 1y ago
    Even my tiniest keyboards have it!
jsnell 1y ago
For the first couple of pages I thought that the article was a gag, and {C,S}-Insert was going to be the punchline.
uncircle 1y ago
I use Alt-W and Ctrl-Y in the terminal, because I already use these to copy/paste on Emacs, and none of the CLI tools I use require these shortcuts. The only issue is remembering to use Ctrl-C/V on Firefox, unless someone knows a way to remap its keybinds.
slim 1y ago
I just select text and press middle mouse button to paste (three fingers tap on trackpads). it works 99% of the time

koiueo 1y ago

The universality of copy/paste is overrated. It's literally just adding shift in terminal emulators, no biggie. A bigger UX problem (on Linux) imo is the multitude of clipboards, we have x11, vim... Those can be synchronized or not, they manifest different behaviors... And btw while apple is often offered as some golden standard for key bindings, I think the situation there is much (MUCH) worse: apps often intercept and handle common combinations on their own, with unclear precedence, which leads to non-deterministic behavior and a complete mess if you want to override any standard combination.

echelon 1y ago
> The universality of copy/paste is overrated. It's literally just adding shift in terminal emulators, no biggie. I don't think anything has caused me more pain with computing than this. And I'm including dealing with Python dependencies.
yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
> A bigger UX problem (on Linux) imo is the multitude of clipboards, we have x11, vim... Those can be synchronized or not, they manifest different behaviors... I would probably like vim's + register to always sync with the X/Wayland clipboard where possible², but it is perhaps worth pointing out that vim has (at least?¹) 28 "clipboard" slots (+, *, a-z) and this is a feature not a bug. Having accepted that, I would likewise point out that X having a clipboard and selection buffer is an intentional feature. I'd support universally supporting one single shared clipboard that everything uses properly by default, but I wouldn't want to limit the other options to do it. ¹Edit: Nope, much more than that: https://learnvim.irian.to/basics/registers https://learnvim.irian.to/basics/registers ²Edit: Oh, yes, I do agree that I would be in favor of making that the default register as well so that ex. just `yy`/`p` used it.
- koiueo 1y ago
  > supporting one single shared clipboard that everything uses properly by defaul Agree. I got to realize how convenient it is to have one shared clipboard by default after I tried (doom)emacs: behaves like vim, has registers like vim, but default register uses the clipboard. I can still use all the registers as much as I like, but the default one is global and can be shared between apps. I now configure my vim like this. I still miss this, however, when working occasionally without a graphical session. Perhaps there's a solution, but I haven't yet bothered to look for it.

antonvs 1y ago

“The Year of the Linux Desktop” will be when copy/pasted is solved.

fmajid 1y ago

Much easier would be to have all apps treat C-S-C as copy and C-S-V as paste like the terminal does. In Chrome this starts the inspector. I changed jobs and went from a Mac to Linux and muscle memory keeps tripping me.

camdroidw 1y ago
Hopefully not UI designer!

mockingloris 1y ago

Been a linux user since 2016 when I found an Ubuntu 16 installation CD in a drawer wirh old books. The thing for me is having ctrl+v paste without formatting. (If I need to retain formatting, I will gladly do ctrl+shift+v) Maybe it's just me but, I'd gladly scroll endlessly looking at pictures of old keyboards / HID devices. (I use a Fellows KU-9938 Split Keyboard and a Kensignton)

globular-toast 1y ago

Not enough people know that you can just select text then middle click somewhere to paste it. No keys required and yes it works with all terminal emulators I've tried. This has been default behaviour on Linux desktops for as long as I've used it (decades).

SkiFire13 1y ago
The fact there is a totally different way to copy text in the terminal is the issue, it just breaks the common mental model. Even worse, this shortcut _requires using a mouse_, and not just for copying, also for selecting!
- spauldo 1y ago
  X has had two clipboards for longer than I've been using it, which is nearly three decades. If your mental model of clipboard interaction only involves a single clipboard, and you use X, your mental model is simply wrong. Sure, you could change X to match your mental model, but now you've broken the mental models of everyone who actually learned to use the software. And one more useful feature that makes X nice to use gets sacrificed to please the people who came from Windows but desperately want everything to work like Windows.
- globular-toast 1y ago
  How would you be copy/pasting in a terminal emulator without a mouse? Any time I've seen someone do it it's: mouse to select, keyboard to copy, mouse to select other place, keyboard to paste. I cringe every time because it could be just: mouse to select, mouse to select and paste it in the other place with one click.
Tor3 1y ago
The problem with this (and to me it's a super annoying problem - marking and pasting with left and middle button is super fast and efficient) is that some browsers (or maybe it's the toolkits behind them) start to either ignore this functionality or force you to repeat the action before it works.

eviks 1y ago

> To trigger the copy or paste keyboard actions, software has to bind these key codes to actions. Software toolkits or apps themselves are responsible for this. If only the universal subset of communication maintained by the OS were actual actions

dajtxx 1y ago

I used stty to make interrupt ktrl-k, then configured the terminal app to make copy/paste ctrl-c/ctrl-v. I use copy/paste more than I use interrupt. I hated MacOS keyboard shortcuts at first, but cmd-c/cmd-v do work around this problem.

biehl 1y ago
Lovely. Do you have some tips for that? Something you put in bashrc?

audiodude 1y ago

While we're talking keyboards, what about emoji? Every messaging app has a different interface for them, some like Discord and Whatsapp allow you to use :smile: shortcuts, but the enumerated names are different across apps. I've occasionally gotten a dedicated OS emoji picker to show up on my Mac, but I don't know how. On Ubuntu Cinnamon, I managed to create keyboard shortcuts for the 8 or so emoji I use the most by binding something called a "compose" key and modifying a .XCompose file, but it still took other config file gymnastics to make it persist between X sessions.

4lejandrito 1y ago
Control + Command + Space
- audiodude 1y ago
  Crazy, thanks!
- addandsubtract 1y ago
  You can also bind it to the fn key on a MacBook.
SkiFire13 1y ago
> I've occasionally gotten a dedicated OS emoji picker to show up on my Mac, but I don't know how. On mine it shows up when I accidentally press the Fn key, which is very inconveniently placed where every other keyboard places the Ctrl key...
numpad0 1y ago
That's just regular keyboard for CJK languages. "today" -> "2025/08/15 Fri", "cry" -> ":crying_face:", etc. It's just small extension to regular "keycodes to full UTF-8 gibberish" process that input method editors handle. There's nothing wrong if someone make ones for en, fr, de, in my opinion. Correction-plus-conversations like "hors douvray" to "hors-d'œuvre" in one key is going go be useful.
TheAceOfHearts 1y ago

weinzierl 1y ago

I think Apple did the right thing by keeping GUI shortcuts separate from terminal control codes. I never understood why the Linux GUI world ran blindly after Windows and emulated every pattern, good or bad. And yes, I know that Ctrl-C/Ctrl-P for Copy/Paste are much older and came out of IBM's CUA and SAA initiatives. What matters is that with the Mac we had a clear role model how to handle this aspect of GUI cleanly but me missed it. While we’re at it, I’m still on the lookout for IBM’s original SAA and CUA documentation. If anyone has these lying around, I’d be interested

timuckun 1y ago
Probably because of Miguel and his fascination with windows.
Someone 1y ago
> I think Apple did the right thing by keeping GUI shortcuts separate from terminal control codes They are separate because they ditched terminal shortcuts and later begrudgingly brought them back. The original Mac didn’t have a control key. They added it back in 1987 because of pressure of terminal emulator programs.
- weinzierl 1y ago
  You mean they successfully resisted the temptation to repurpose Ctrl, even though they were sure never to need it again. They did the right thing by introducing a new key for a new thing.
Dwedit 1y ago
Ctrl+Ins, Shift+Ins, Shift+Del are the traditional shortcut keys that predate Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X. They still work on many Windows programs.
- weinzierl 1y ago
  The problem is not the lack of alternatives but the embrace, extend and extinguish of established Ctrl-Key combination standards. I am not angry at Microsoft because that is what they do. I am disappointed of Linux that it followed suit. Besides that, every Mac has Ctrl and Option, the vast majority of users does not have dedicated Ins and Del anymore and I doubt they know how to use the Fn combos for that.

WesolyKubeczek 1y ago

Wouldn't it be darn nice, though, if there was a universal mechanism for apps to announce which shortcut they have available and a centralized way to configure them all? For example, I was able to assign copy/paste keys to the corresponding actions in the GTK keybindings, and it worked like charm, except in Chrome. That is, in Chrome, web content respected these keybindings, but the browser UI didn't. So I could use the keys on textareas and inputs all I wanted, but paste into the address bar? Nooooo, BECAUSE FUCKING CHROME HAS THEM HARDCODED per platform! (However, in Firefox it worked just fine across the whole UI.)

v9v 1y ago

In Emacs if CUA mode is on, C-c behaves as copy if any text is selected (and if no other keys have been pressed within a short time). To send a C-c when text is selected you do a C-S-c instead. Similarly in Windows Terminal I remember C-c works as copy without any issue (it deselects the text with the first C-c IIRC, so if you do two C-c's with text selected you copy and then send an interrupt). Do any linux terminals implement anything like this? Why resort to adding new keys to keyboards?

enricozb 1y ago

I just remap my terminal to have Ctrl-X to send SIGHUP, and Ctrl-C to copy. X looks more like a kill to me anyways.

deknos 1y ago

instead of some universal shortcuts, i would prefer to have another meta key, that we finally can do another-meta+ctrl+alt+ascii for more combinations :D universal shortcuts are overrated and get in your way anyway :D

kid64 1y ago

What about cut?

uncircle 1y ago
Cut also has a dedicated keycode. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44911608 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44911608

sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago

I thought "finally, Linux is adopting CUA", then realized this was a stealthy ad selling me remappable keyboards.

Tor3 1y ago

We already had a universal copy/paste in Linux: Mark with left mouse button, paste with middle button. This used to work for just about everything. However, lately browsers started to ignore this when I mark the URL and try to paste it elsewhere, for example. Instead I get the old clipboard. I have to use the left button multiple times - and it works. Falling back to Windows-style copy/paste, either with keys or pull-down menus with "copy" and later "paste" is, to me, a huge, inefficient step backwards and it's frustrating me every day. Addon: For purely non-mouse work, think serial terminal, I for one want Emacs bindings. Though that's typically configurable for the shell anyway, so everyone can choose what they prefer.

nullc 1y ago
I think the multiple clipboards are great. My only regret is that there aren't more of them. Three would be excellent. But having multiple is very good, both for the pattern of "paste one thing over and over again, interspersed with copying and pasting other things" and for the pattern of "copy 1; copy 2; paste 1; paste 2" or "copy1; copy2; paste 2; paste 1" with only a single application switch. When firefox screwed up the address bar so that the left-click/middle-click didn't work right was easily the worst step down in computing for me in modern history. Initially you could recover the non-chrome like behavior with a preference but they eventually broke that too.
Propelloni 1y ago
> We already had a universal copy/paste in Linux: Mark with left mouse button, paste with middle button. We still have it, at least for text. I just copied the little quote above with left mouse highlight, middle mouse paste while writing this comment in Firefox in Gnome 48 with Wayland. I use it a lot on the terminal. What doesn't appear to work anymore (at least in Wayland) is copying a selection as a bitmap into a bitmap editor, ie. paint. Only a few decades ago that used to work, I remember that.
- Tor3 1y ago
  We still have it, it's just that we don't have it everywhere anymore. Which truly breaks up the workflow, or how I do things.

voidUpdate 1y ago

With the author's Corne keymap, wouldn't holding down the backspace key to access the "raise" layer start deleting text?

rgoulter 1y ago
It's a 'tap-hold' key, so the "tap" functionality is activated separately from its "hold" functionality. Though, in order to get the same effect as "hold down backspace", e.g. QMK lets you have "tap then hold" as a way of invoking that functionality.

atmanactive 1y ago

So what ARE the key codes for dedicated copy and paste keys?

uncircle 1y ago
On Linux, they map to XF86Copy and XF86Paste. There's also XF86Cut and XF86Undo. You can bind these on Emacs, for example.

dsr_ 1y ago

I have a mouse with an interesting number of buttons. (Elecom EX-G Pro; I recommend it if you have large hands and like thumb trackballs.) So I ran xev to see what buttons they mapped to, and chose: "xvkbd -text "\[XF86Copy]"" m:0x0 + b:8 "xvkbd -text "\[XF86Paste]"" m:0x0 + b:9 which my fingers have learned work everywhere except Chrome. Thanks, Google.

TacticalCoder 1y ago

[dead]

account42 1y ago

Linux already has (or had) a universal copy paste: selection and middle click.

jmclnx 1y ago
Maybe depends upon the DE/WM you are using. UN*X has 2 copy/paste buffers and they both work on Slackware with a Window Manager under X11 as you mentioned. I think the same is true with DE. Is that not the case with Wayland ? Anyway, I always liked how these worked when compared to Microsoft. Again, I do not what to see this change. Plus we already have enough keys on our keyboard. I think Microsoft is in the process of adding an AI key, crazy. I do not look forward to 1000 keys on a laptop keyboard, already I fat finger the current keyboards too much.

eqvinox 1y ago

It's ancillary to this post, but I don't understand this obsession with "programmable" keyboards, at least for plain remapping of keys. There's entirely no point in doing it; the keymap / layout (not application key bindings, before that) is what gives keys meaning to begin with. Why would you care about what keycode a keyboard sends for some key? The only thing that matters is NKRO, if you want to remap modifiers; on non-NKRO keyboards the modifier keys are different in that they don't clash with other keys. If the keyboard has some macro function, okay, I can see that being useful, in rare circumstances (in most cases you could also just do that in software.) Meanwhile, the only way to get a keyboard that has 2 physical keys in the space where the wide caps lock key is on a "normal" keyboard is to build it myself. That key is the one completely useless key in the "core" of a regular layout, and I'd really like to be able to put 2 custom functions there (rather than just 1).

uncircle 1y ago
The keymap functionality in your OS is a hack because most keyboards are not programmable. I use a split keyboard in a Colemak layout, and it's programmed to send the correct keys despite them being in "different" places compared to a normal keyboard, so I don't have to mess with keymap switching on the operating system. I just plug it in and it works. Also what you deem obsession is called ergonomics. Since a programmer uses a keyboard 100% of the time they spend in front of a computer, optimising for ergonomics is a great time investment. My symbol layer is so much more sane and comfortable than having to use Shift-number like an ape (no offence). In the home row under my strongest fingers, for example, I have "():_= which are the most common symbols in popular programming languages. My two thumbs are not wasted to press an humongous space bar, but have access to modifiers such as Shift and Ctrl instead of having to use my pinkies. The secret to not losing muscle memory when you have to go back programming like an ape on a regular keyboard, is to choose a very different physical layout (like an ortholinear split keyboard) for your programmable keyboard. Then you're just learning another "instrument" which is spatially laid out differently than what you are used to, retaining your memory of QWERTY on a regular keyboard.
- eqvinox 1y ago

johnea 1y ago

Double-click then middle-click How much more universal could it get? The mark/splat functionality is one of the things that drew me to early linux...

p0w3n3d 1y ago

The best way to solve this is to use win+c for copy and win+v as paste, as it's Mac doing. However making this ubiquitous in the system is impossible, that's why when I moved to Mac in my work, I have trouble using Linux in my laptop

sombragris 1y ago

Ctrl-Ins for copy, Shift-Ins for paste, is something that works everywhere in a graphical desktop, including my (KDE Plasma 6 Konsolepart) terminal. AFAICT the clipboard is the same.

deepsun 1y ago

One thing I like is to set CapsLock to "switch to English". No need to think what language I'm at, just click it idempotently. Besides, CapsLock is the most useless key anyway.

wltr 1y ago

For those running Sway on a MacBook, here you go: ``` # Copy-Paste re-implementation for Mac Keyboard set $mod Mod4 bindsym --to-code $mod+z exec wtype -P XF86Undo bindsym --to-code $mod+Shift+z exec wtype -P XF86Redo bindsym --to-code $mod+x exec wtype -P XF86Cut bindsym --to-code $mod+c exec wtype -P XF86Copy bindsym --to-code $mod+v exec wtype -P XF86Paste ``` Where mod is the cmd key. It works well in most apps. At least in those I care about (terminal, browser, vim). Took me a very long time to find this solution, as a macOS refugee. Not necessarily a MacBook, by the way. I have an Apple Keyboard with my PC (just a great keyboard I enjoy), so it works there too.

tmtvl 1y ago
For future reference, on HN you can format code snippets by indenting it (that is, to say, indenting every line) by two spaces: # Copy-Paste re-implementation for Mac Keyboard set $mod Mod4 bindsym --to-code $mod+z exec wtype -P XF86Undo bindsym --to-code $mod+Shift+z exec wtype -P XF86Redo bindsym --to-code $mod+x exec wtype -P XF86Cut bindsym --to-code $mod+c exec wtype -P XF86Copy bindsym --to-code $mod+v exec wtype -P XF86Paste
- wltr 1y ago
  Oh, thanks, I didn’t know how to do that, and since you fixed it already, I’m going to keep it as it is, for others to know too.

zahlman 1y ago

> But what if there were hidden shortcut combos for copy and paste on Linux that work across most apps without adding any additional software or configuration? By the end of 2025, this will be the case, and many apps already support them. Here's the scoop! Really? What's the rationale here? > The two most popular toolkits are GTK and QT. GTK added support the copy and paste keyboards in January 2025. QT also added support for copy and paste key codes the same month. I'm not sure of the first released version of the GTK toolkit that will contain the fix. For QT, it will be QT 6.10, scheduled for release in September 2025. Together, this will cover many apps built for Gnome and KDE as well as others that use the same toolkits. ... Oh. No, I'm afraid that's not how the Linux ecosystem works. There are still GTK2-related packages in the current Ubuntu repos, and QT5 is still quite popular from what I can tell.

mixmastamyk 1y ago

I wouldn’t mind an apple command key on PCs, but plug a Mac keyboard in and GUIs generally configure it as “super” usually meaning window actions rather than commands. If we could set that as a command key under the thumb I’d like that.

paolomainardi 1y ago

MacOS has for me the best basic keybindings even thanks to the keyboard hardware design and the fn button placed on the left side, which is the right one, as it opens the door to have home/end/pgup/pgdown with fn + arrows, and high ie perfect for 65% keyboards, I’ll never understood why pc keyboard and mech ones have the fn on the right side, totally useless. Another thing MacOS did it right, cmd+c/v for copy/paste. Anyway, I talked about this here: https://www.paolomainardi.com/posts/linux-remapping-keys-with-xremap/ https://www.paolomainardi.com/posts/linux-remapping-keys-wit... and how to remap with Xremap.