According to the vim user manual 04.7 (http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/usr_04.html#04.7), you can yank from vim to the clipboard with "*y and put into vim from the clipboard with "*p. I can successfully use the "*p command but the "*y command isn't working for me right now. The issue has persisted for a few weeks. I'm aware you can get around the issue using gvim, but I'm after a solution when running vim from the terminal.
Does anyone have thoughts on what the problem might be? I've included my .vimrc file below—as you'll see, it's more or less the default file that is provided prepackaged with vim.
I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 as a VM on Windows 10. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
" An example for a vimrc file.
"
" Maintainer: Bram Moolenaar <[email protected]>
" Last change: 2016 Mar 25
"
" To use it, copy it to
" for Unix and OS/2: ~/.vimrc
" for Amiga: s:.vimrc
" for MS-DOS and Win32: $VIM\_vimrc
" for OpenVMS: sys$login:.vimrc
" When started as "evim", evim.vim will already have done these settings.
if v:progname =~? "evim"
finish
endif
" Use Vim settings, rather than Vi settings (much better!).
" This must be first, because it changes other options as a side effect.
set nocompatible
" Activate pathogen file manager
execute pathogen#infect()
" allow backspacing over everything in insert mode
set backspace=indent,eol,start
"if has("vms")
" set nobackup " do not keep a backup file, use versions instead
"else
" set backup " keep a backup file (restore to previous version)
" set undofile " keep an undo file (undo changes after closing)
"endif
set history=50 " keep 50 lines of command line history
set ruler " show the cursor position all the time
set showcmd " display incomplete commands
set incsearch " do incremental searching
" For Win32 GUI: remove 't' flag from 'guioptions': no tearoff menu entries
" let &guioptions = substitute(&guioptions, "t", "", "g")
" Don't use Ex mode, use Q for formatting
map Q gq
" CTRL-U in insert mode deletes a lot. Use CTRL-G u to first break undo,
" so that you can undo CTRL-U after inserting a line break.
inoremap <C-U> <C-G>u<C-U>
" In many terminal emulators the mouse works just fine, thus enable it.
if has('mouse')
set mouse=a
endif
" Switch syntax highlighting on, when the terminal has colors
" Also switch on highlighting the last used search pattern.
if &t_Co > 2 || has("gui_running")
syntax on
set hlsearch
endif
" Only do this part when compiled with support for autocommands.
if has("autocmd")
" Enable file type detection.
" Use the default filetype settings, so that mail gets 'tw' set to 72,
" 'cindent' is on in C files, etc.
" Also load indent files, to automatically do language-dependent indenting.
filetype plugin indent on
" Put these in an autocmd group, so that we can delete them easily.
augroup vimrcEx
au!
" For all text files set 'textwidth' to 78 characters.
autocmd FileType text setlocal textwidth=78
" When editing a file, always jump to the last known cursor position.
" Don't do it when the position is invalid or when inside an event handler
" (happens when dropping a file on gvim).
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if line("'\"") >= 1 && line("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal! g`\"" |
\ endif
augroup END
else
set autoindent " always set autoindenting on
set sts=4 " 3 options to halve displayed indent
set shiftwidth=4 " (without altering true tabstop)
set noexpandtab
endif " has("autocmd")
" Convenient command to see the difference between the current buffer and the
" file it was loaded from, thus the changes you made.
" Only define it when not defined already.
if !exists(":DiffOrig")
command DiffOrig vert new | set bt=nofile | r ++edit # | 0d_ | diffthis
\ | wincmd p | diffthis
endif
if has('langmap') && exists('+langnoremap')
" Prevent that the langmap option applies to characters that result from a
" mapping. If unset (default), this may break plugins (but it's backward
" compatible).
set langnoremap
endif
" Add optional packages.
"
" The matchit plugin makes the % command work better, but it is not backwards
" compatible.
packadd matchit
On linux, the desktop clipboard is the + (quoteplus) register. The * (quotestar) instead refers to X11 visual selections, as said here. So, try doing "+y to yank and "+p to put text.