"Select all" in terminal is defective

[HyperBear]

In the terminal, "Select all" only selects as many lines as fit in the window, which makes it useless.
"Select all" does not select the entire buffer like it does in Windows CMD and PowerShell.

Is this limitation intentional?

[xenopeek]

Yes, a large scrollback caused a bug with select all so it was limited to just the screen: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-te ... issues/288. Underlying issue is https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vte/-/issues/2504 I think but no (good) fix yet.

You can still manually select text and then copy it, or use a different terminal program. Another terminal program may support copying the entire scrollback. If you go look for that, don't do VTE based terminals. The issue is in VTE.

[billyswong]

Somebody made a PPA ppa:nrbrtx/vte https://launchpad.net/~nrbrtx/+archive/ubuntu/vte to force feed the old library into new Debian/Ubuntu/Mint. Whether one shall go such extreme route to restore the "select all", is up to one's personal decision.

[AndyMH]

Thanks for this post, I had noticed that, while it worked in LM20.3, it wasn't working in LM21.1. I had not got around to looking for a fix, I won't bother now.

[HyperBear]

Yes, a large scrollback caused a bug with select all so it was limited to just the screen: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-te ... issues/288. Underlying issue is https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/vte/-/issues/2504 I think but no (good) fix yet.

You can still manually select text and then copy it, or use a different terminal program. Another terminal program may support copying the entire scrollback. If you go look for that, don't do VTE based terminals. The issue is in VTE.

I see. One could indeed use an alternative or download a version that predates the restriction. Thanks for help, xeno.

As the comments on gitlab.gnome.org mention, they should have made this restriction optional or let the user specify a limit at their own responsibility, instead of dictating the limitation.

Somebody made a PPA ppa:nrbrtx/vte https://launchpad.net/~nrbrtx/+archive/ubuntu/vte to force feed the old library into new Debian/Ubuntu/Mint. Whether one shall go such extreme route to restore the "select all", is up to one's personal decision.

So the decision to restrict "select all" was that unpopular that people took these extreme measures. This is understandable, since being able to copy the entire terminal buffer could be useful for debugging and saving stuff for future reference.

Having to manually select the text is inconvenient but tolerable, so I don't think I will be going through that hassle for now. Nonetheless, thank you for your help, Billy.