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I have a CentOS 8 minimal install. There is no GUI. If I am on the console, say I have typed out a command, such as nice-command-with-switches-that-does-stuff that I am happy with. Now, I want to either to select all or part of this line that is on the console so that I can then vi script.sh and then to paste this information at a location that I want within the script.

Obviously, doing echo 'nice-command-with-switches-that-does-stuff' >> script.sh could work but only if I want the text at the end of the file (and that's not always the case).

Is there a generic way that I can selectively mark some text on the console where I am working and store it in a buffer/clipboard to use elsewhere (such as inside vim or nano or some other editor), and in the opposite direction, could I yank some text while inside vi that I could then keep until I am pluck outside of vi and then paste that onto the console?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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  • You can select text on the screen and copy/paste it using mouse via the gpm service. I'm not sure if it's enabled by default, if it's not, dnf install gpm; systemctl enable gpm; systemctl start gpm.

  • Secondly you can use screen/tmux to copy any portion of the screen (including the scrollback history) and then paste anywhere you want.

Probably there are other methods but these two ones are the most obvious. Plain Linux text terminal is quite limited in terms of its abilities.

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Plain Linux text terminal is quite limited in terms of its abilities.

Not true at all!

Linux Bash Terminal Keyboard Shortcuts Shortcut Action Bash Navigation Ctrl + A Move to the start of the command line Ctrl + E Move to the end of the command line Ctrl + F Move one character forward Ctrl + B Move one character backward Ctrl + XX Switch cursor position between start of the command line and the current position Ctrl + ] + x Moves the cursor forward to next occurrence of x Alt + F Moves the cursor one word forward Alt + B Moves the cursor one word backward Alt + Ctrl + ] + x Moves cursor to the previous occurrence of x Bash Control/Process Ctrl + L Similar to clear command, clears the terminal screen Ctrl + S Stops command output to the screen Ctrl + Z Suspends current command execution and moves it to the background Ctrl + Q Resumes suspended command Ctrl + C Sends SIGI signal and kills currently executing command Ctrl + D Closes the current terminal Bash History Ctrl + R Incremental reverse search of bash history Alt + P Non-incremental reverse search of bash history Ctrl + J Ends history search at current command Ctrl + _ Undo previous command Ctrl + P Moves to previous command Ctrl + N Moves to next command Ctrl + S Gets the next most recent command Ctrl + O Runs and re-enters the command found via Ctrl + S and Ctrl + R Ctrl + G Exits history search mode !! Runs last command !* Runs previous command except its first word !*:p Displays what !* substitutes !x Runs recent command in the bash history that begins with x !x:p Displays the x command and adds it as the recent command in history !$ Same as OPTION+., brings forth last argument of the previous command !^ Substitutes first argument of last command in the current command !$:p Displays the word that !$ substitutes ^123^abc Replaces 123 with abc !n:m Repeats argument within a range (i.e, m 2-3) !fi Repeats latest command in history that begins with fi !n Run nth command from the bash history !n:p Prints the command !n executes !n:$ Repeat arguments from the last command (i.e, from argument n to $) Bash Editing Ctrl + U Deletes before the cursor until the start of the command Ctrl + K Deletes after the cursor until the end of the command Ctrl + W Removes the command/argument before the cursor Ctrl + D Removes the character under the cursor Ctrl + H Removes character before the cursor Alt + D Removes from the character until the end of the word Alt + Backspace Removes from the character until the start of the word Alt + . Uses last argument of previous command Alt + < Moves to the first line of the bash history Alt + > Moves to the last line of the bash history Esc + T Switch between last two words before cursor Alt + T Switches current word with the previous Bash Information TAB Autocompletes the command or file/directory name ~TAB TAB List all Linux users Ctrl + I Completes the command like TAB Alt + ? Display files/folders in the current path for help Alt + * Display files/folders in the current path as parameter

Linux support for editing the cli is amazing if you bother to learn it. Good Luck!

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