Last Updated on January 17, 2020 by Christopher G Mendla
THIS was driving me batty. I have Putty running on Ubuntu which runs on an Oracle Virtualbox on a Win 10 machine. I was trying to copy and paste and getting nowhere. The solution turned out to be pretty simple
To Recap, here is the layout
* Windows 10 running Oracle’s Virtualbox
* Ubuntu 18.x is running as a VM
* Putty is running on the Ubuntu system
The problem was that I couldn’t figure out how to copy from the terminal to another app such as Slack. I was in the middle of working with someone where we were upgrading a server from Debian Wheezy to Debian Jessie.
I finally found the answer. It is a bit awkward and assumes you are using a mouse with a wheel.. (I have no clue how I could implement it with the laptop’s touchpad or a two button mouse. )
* Click at the beginning of the text you want to copy,
* HOLD THE SHIFT KEY.
* Drag the mouse to the end of the text you want to copy
* DO NOT HIT ANY OTHER KEYS OR MOUSE BUTTONS. You do NOT need to do a CTRL-C or right click.
Then go to your target. Position your mouse and press the wheel. This is a little tricky with my mouse as I had to click firmly enough to paste but not so firm as to double paste.
Whoever came up with this must be a direct descendant of the Marquis de Sade and Elizabeth Bathory.
As I understand it, I could use another tool for SSH connections including the Unix Terminal. I’m going to definitely look into that when I get a chance.
You might want to check the settings for the copy-paste to make sure it isn’t rectangular.
BONUS – The default font size was hideously small (Again, de Sade/Bathory). Go to the fonts dialog and change the font from server:fixed to something such as freeMono, Regular, 16. (or maybe 14) That will provide a font that you can actually read.
