I always use Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V to copy and paste in my (non tmux) terminal.
You can change these keyboard shortcuts in the keyboard preferences of your (non-tmux) terminal.
If however you want to keep using tmux you can also change the keyboard shortcuts of tmux by adding commands to ~/.tmux.conf
. simply add the following in that file:
bind-key -n [shortcut. for example Ctrl+v is C-v] [what you want to do. for example 'new-window' etc]
It will look like this
bind-key -n C-t new-window
You don't need the command prefix key to execute the commands in the ~/.tmux.conf
file.
For more info about the things available for ~/.tmux.conf
check this link
Very rudimentary copying and pasting can be done using this however for a bit more usefulness I recommend using a Vim-style copy/paste config.
Enabling a Vim-style of copy/paste can be done with this config file or another config file. These do however require the use of the prefix key.
Someone even made a tmux extension to simplify the copy/paste action to the system clipboard in tmux. It might be worth a look.
If you want an alternative for Tmux you might try dvtm (sudo apt-get install dvtm dtach
). I haven't used it myself but it looks like it has similar options.