Hi,

One thing that has been bugging me for a while in Xubuntu, is that if I take any kind of screenshot and try to paste it directly into something like email or a document, it takes up to 30 seconds to appear. If I choose to open the screenshot in a graphics package like Gimp or Shutter, it is actually quicker!

Is this the fault of my target applications or is there something strange about the clipboard?

Thanks,
S

It may well be that the image has to be converted from the graphic format to text and back again, for pasting into a text-format area such as email or a document. I've always saved the screenshot to a file in PNG format, then inserted it into the message as an attachment, and that has been about as fast as any other graphics operation...

How large are the images? That could well be a factor.

I was copying some images from emails today and pasting them into the GIMP on a Dell 1545 with an Intel Pentium T4200 and 4GB RAM. I did not keep time, but there was a noticeable lag between issuing the paste command and the images' appearance in the GIMP. The images were about 2MB, give or take.

Ok, so this is getting worse for me. Today I cannot paste screenshots of photos (only 1024 x 768 roughly in pixels) into any Linux application. Oddly, while using Remmina to remotely RDP into my Windows laptop - I can take a screenshot in Linux and paste it into my Windows laptop instantly - Word, Outlook, Paint, etc.

This is pretty poor - it seems there is a serious deficiency in my Linux applications for accepting what is in the clipboard. The fact that my Linux clipboard pastes into my remote Windows laptop over the network largely proves this.

I really do not want such a simple issue make me start using Windows for every day tasks. I take a lot of screenshots and paste into documents on a daily basis. This is forcing me to use Windows again and I want to cry!

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can improve this seemingly basic thing in Linux, it would be much appreciated.

try different clipboard applications and see if the problem persists?
start the clipboard application(s) from a terminal, so you can see if they throw warnings/errors?
post these messages here?

i take it your system is running smoothly otherwise, and you haven't somehow forgotten to tell us about some other elephant in the room (the room being your linux installation)?

Thanks I will try debugging the clipboard applications and see if there is anything obvious.

The system has been rock solid since I installed it in February. I had not booted into Windows since I installed it (dual boot currently).

If it helps - when I take a screen shot of something simple (e.g. not a photo) then it pastes in immediately...

sounds performance related.
you might want to post some general specs about your machine, cpu, ram, and gpu. and what gpu driver is in use.

oh btw, try disabling compositing in xfce.

if this turns out to be an xfce problem, you might consider posting on xfce forums.
i think they're interested if it is a real technical problem, and if it's 100 xfce related.

Thanks again - I have resolved the issue!

It was in fact the xfce4-screenshooter. I was using this because it was seemingly light-weight but had a simple capture region function.

I switched to using Shutter which is a much heavier application, albeit very nice and much better in terms of functionality - it is lightning fast so I am very happy now! I have now assigned it to my keyboard short-cuts and set Shutter to load at startup.

It would have been surprising if my machine was too slow - it is a hex-core CPU, 8GB Crucial Ballistix RAM, nVidia 560 Ti and Xubuntu runs on a dedicated 256GB SSD - by all means a pretty fast machine that can still play the latest games at 1080p (yes ok not 4k, but I don't even have a 4k monitor!).

Hi, Samsonite. I'm glad you got your simple issue resolved. Personally, I'm a little slow at giving support under the thread of using Windows. Linux does so many things much better than Windows. If Windows users took one small issue and switched to Linux because Linux was better with that small issue, Windows would loose all it's users.

I understand that a person might use Windows to compare to something that might appear to have a solution because it's done in Windows. But spending I consider it counter productive to bring switching to Windows so early in the game while looking for a solution.

In Linux, you'll find that you are not locked in to doing things one way. There are many ways, and some times you might do something a particular way according to the immediate objective. You'll also find, as you found with this instance for assistance, that you have a lot of support and expertise in helping you to find an efficient way to achieve your objective.

I'm glad that for you, the thread of dropping Linux for Windows didn't slow the support assistance for the many LQ users dedicated to giving support.

And again, I'm glad you got your issue resolved.

You might consider contributing back to the community by marking this support thread as solved.

You can do this by clicking Thread Tools and putting a check mark under solved. This way others having problems with pasting will have been success in finding threads that have the solutions.

Enjoy!

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

Hi Larry,

I think you misunderstood the switching back to Windows argument - I only said for particular tasks, like this one. I literally had to be able to paste images into a document somehow and had to switch to Windows temporarily until I resolved it in Linux. I was just complaining that I hated having to use Windows for this every day task!

Also, I have a Windows laptop (as mentioned) which sits on the network - this is a company laptop which I barely touch, but I mostly use it to fire up ad hoc VMs as it has an i7 CPU. I also have dual boot Windows & Linux as I only switched to Linux in February this year - I put in a new SSD just for Linux but kept my Windows install intact. When I build my next PC, it will be pure Linux for sure.

I hope that cleared up any Windows hard feelings!

Regards,
S

Thanks for seeing the good intentions of my message. It wasn't hard feelings. And, you're right. I did misunderstand. I thought you were saying completely drop Linux. And you're right that people often have more than one OS in the house for performing certain tasks that the OS does better. From your updated message, is sounds like you have the ideal setup, and as you mentioned in your original message and this one, that you hoped to not have to use your backup Windows for the single simple task.

Welcome to Linux. And thanks for not taking my comments in a negative way.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

No worries - thank you for your comments. I really love using Linux and I am so impressed that not only have I not used the Windows dual boot feature since switching 6 months ago, but that while learning and using Linux, my desktop environment is far superior and tailored to my needs better than my old Windows install which mostly kept me hanging on due to gaming. Then Steam for Linux happened (well more an explosion of 2,000+ games) and there was nothing left to hang on to!

I will mark the thread as solved - hopefully it will help others if they come across a similar issue.