In most apps, the primary selection is populated merely by selecting something, while the clipboard selection is populated by some sort of explicit user action, like ctrl-C or a context menu.
The clipboard selection is pasted with some other explicit action. Usually it's analogous to the way you copy to it, like ctrl-V, or a context menu.
The primary selection is usually "pasted" with middle mouse button. Sometimes there's also a keyboard shortcut, and if there is it's often a modified form of the clipboard-selection's paste shortcut.
Most people get confused by the fact that there is more than one "clipboardy thing". They copy to one, and then paste from the other and winner why their copy didn't work.
The fact that there isn't a consistent action to get to each doesn't help. It is consistent if you stick to apps from the same "family" (eg: Gnome/gtk+ or KDE), except terminals never use ctrl key shortcuts. (Because control characters already mean something in terminals.)
This is one of the cases where I think the Mac approach happens to work out better than Linux (or Windows): by using ⌘ instead of control as the default shortcut modifier, there's no ambiguity about whether I'm talking to my terminal (copy, paste, spawn new window, etc.) or trying to send a control character. I don't know why the Linux community defacto-standardized on control keys rather than Super (or even Alt), given the high proportion of Linux users who are also terminal users.
Let's not blame the (l)users. For example, by merely selecting the text you want to replace you may override the paste buffer content - this is a blatant POLA[1] violation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...
I don't think stating that "people get confused" is placing blame on one party or the other. That they get confused is a fact. I said nothing about whose fault that is.
> For example, by merely selecting the text you want to replace you may override the paste buffer content
It's a trade-off. Having the mere act of selecting text copy it to the primary selection is extremely convenient. There isn't any way to have that convenience without the downside that overwriting it is also easy. If you want to copy something and not have further selections overwrite it, you use the clipboard. This is like the trade-off of having a confirmation dialog or not.
I wouldn't say "this is a blatant POLA violation". What surprises one person might seem obvious to another. There is only one intuitive user interface, everything else is learned.
The confusion starts with the fact that people typically aren't told that the primary selection and the clipboard are two separate things (and by using the term "paste buffer" to ambiguously refer to one of them you're perpetuating this). Much of this misconception comes from the fact that more popular systems (Windows and Mac) only have the one clipboard, and people assume that whatever they learned first is universally true.
Not knowing about the primary selection actually isn't a problem on its own, though. After all, if one only knows about the clipboard operations, but doesn't ever trigger pasting from the primary selection, then the fact that the primary selection even exists would be invisible to them. The clipboard selection on X works pretty much the same as the clipboard on other systems.
The real problems start when people who believe there is only one "paste buffer" are then told, or discover, that they can "paste" using operations that actually paste from the primary selection rather than the clipboard. The worst part is that this doesn't fail outright, but instead seems to work, but inconsistently. Now they're confused, because there is no way to reconcile this behavior with their mental model that "this is another way to paste from the one and only clipboard".
Only on terminal it's with SHIFT to avoid conflict the Ctrl+C that ends a command.
There's a good guide here :
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dell_XPS_13_(9350)#High...
Using alsamixer, I set 'Headphone Mic Boost Volume' to be 22. Then persisted the change with 'sudo alsactl store'.
I haven't experienced the other issues with Arch, though.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCdRecovery#Update_Fail...
Rather than Ctrl+Alt+F1 (which switches to a TTY), you can open a Terminal instead and run 'sudo -i' to get a root shell.
Replace 'sda1' with your root disk (you may have LVM enabled, and definitely if you have full disk encryption). If you don't have disk encryption, run 'pvscan' and see if it reports anything.
To get the update to finish, you can run 'dpkg --configure --all'.
I thought Dell’s XPS series was supposed to have first class support on Linux? Did you try to contact Dell? I never had problem with sound on Linux even with some very cheap hardware.
Anyway, if you’re willing to do some tinkering yourself it might be as simple as adjusting some deep alsa settings.
E.g. this guy makes it look easy[1] :)
> I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything.
Does it use “precision” drivers on Windows? Sometimes trackpads implement their own gesture recognition and all kinds of other weird things. Check what you get with `xinput list` and try disabling anything that is not a pointer device.
> (it was on the latest 16.04)
Was it a new Dell? If you have new hardware and old kernel then forgot all of the above as that is obviously not a great combination. You absolutely need the latest kernel for the latest hardware.
> I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer.
Yeah sorry, Ubuntu doesn’t offer safe upgrades. I suggest if you don’t have much Linux experience (and even if you do) OpenSuse Leap/Tumbleweed which has full snapshot & rollback support[1], and since recently fully transactional upgrades as well.
Upgrade are offered from LTS to LTS only once the x.x.1 has been released.
- Headphones constantly crackle when they're plugged in. I've tried updating audio drivers, enabling/disabling various things, editing config files, etc. nothing fixes it. I've gotten used to listening to music with a crackle superimposed on top.
- Screen randomly flickers
- The trackpad interface is nothing short of _atrocious_. If you move around it too much it "locks up" the cursor and you can't move anymore, you have to click it several times while dragging until it starts working again. If you brush it with a single atom of your finger as you're typing, the cursor will move around wildly, often selecting most of the text you've typed and overwriting it with your next character. I've also tried updating/changing/etc libinput and it doesn't do anything.
- In an attempt to fix the above issues, I tried to update to Ubuntu 18.04 (it was on the latest 16.04). `do-release-upgrade` wouldn't recognize there was a new version available (this was a few days ago). I did `do-release-upgrade -d` without realizing it was a dev version, then after a few minutes of reading I realized it was, so I cancelled it, and rebooted my computer. Now, it just boots to a cursor on a black screen and it never changes. At this point I just decided to start using my Macbook again until I get un-frustrated enough to figure out what to do with the Dell.