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I don't really understand the linux clipboard/s scheme. Instead of understanding it, is there a way to simplify it into one, unified clipboard? You know, so I could copy in any app and paste in any other?

The current issue that's bugging me is IntelliJ's "copy path" action seems to copy the path of the current file, but I can only paste it back into IntelliJ itself - if I try to paste it into a terminal, the content simply isn't in the clipboard.

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Never used that IDE, but I don't have any issues with the Linux clipboard. Are there other sch situations? – Tshepang May 22 '11 at 13:42
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@Tshepang - one example is in gvim, if I select a text, do edit-->copy, then select another piece of text, then I effectively have two different pieces of text to paste. Middle click will paste the last text I selected, while edit->paste will paste the text I edit->copied. – ripper234 May 22 '11 at 14:19
There is concept of clipboard in the X Window system. Given that most of the time you work in X, this is only a matter of configuring/patching programs not using X clipboard to use it. For example, X-window enabled GNU Emacs don't copy to X clipboard by default, but can be easily configured to do so. – alex May 22 '11 at 15:01
@alex Not exactly true, there are multiple concepts of clipboard in the X Window System. – Adam Byrtek May 22 '11 at 18:30
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@ripper234: That's because Vim by default copies to its internal buffer. If you want to copy to the system clipboard, use the + special buffer, to copy "+y and to paste "+p in the Command Mode. The * buffer is the middle click buffer, and there are many regular buffers which can only be used by Vim which can be accessed by prefixing the copy/paste with "a to "b (e.g. "aY) – Lie Ryan May 22 '11 at 18:38
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2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

There are several clipboard managers such as parcellite, klipper, glipper, glippy, anamnesis, pastie and others. These generally allow you to manage your clipboard by presenting a history.

Some of them allow you to treat the primary and secondary clipboards as one (parcellite and klipper definitely do).

Anamnesis allows you to plow through your history with a search tool.

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I just installed Parcellite following your suggestion and it works wonderingly well. It's simply and get's the job done. Thx for the suggestion! – jeroen Dec 7 '12 at 9:29
Anamnesis fits the job well. Very small codebase and easy to read, to boot. – Shurane Feb 19 at 2:54
up vote 4 down vote

autocutsel is a lightweight tool that merges the contents of both clipboards. You might also consider using a full-blown clipboard manager, like Shawn suggested.

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