> Ctrl-C copies if there's a selection, which is unnecessary under OSX
That's because macOS uses a wholly different keyboard shortcut for copy which is only a standard for Apple. The rest of the world uses the IBM CUA standard at their core. On a Linux desktop, you use `Ctrl+Shift+C` to copy when in the terminal. Alternatively, you can re-bind Super+C and Super+V to copy and paste - then it's just like your Mac. But I wouldn't do that [0].
Macs have all sorts of inconsistencies and hardships for keyboard users. For instance, open the `About this Mac` window (or any app running in the menubar which is not a System Preferences app) and then move focus away from that program. Now try to use the keyboard to switch back to it. You can't. The only way you can do that is by starting `About this Mac` over again via Spotlight or by focusing on the menu (Fn+Ctrl+F2) to restart it.
Aside from that, if you don't want to memorize keyboard shortcuts on your Mac you have to at least memorize the cryptic symbols that they show in the program menus. A sane OS shows the same words that are typically printed on a keyboard (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Esc) whereas macOS shows you a caret symbol, a long up arrow arrow symbol, a lambda symbol or the "Escape" symbol that looks too much like the international symbol for the power button... and then they don't print those symbols anywhere on the laptop's keyboard. Those symbols are only printed on the external Mac keyboards, not the ones that come with your Macbook.
[0] Macs have so many limitations. You can't even easily change the mouse pointer color from black to white without buying a third party program - and even then - that program didn't exist for a long, long time. I've tried to force my Mac to be an OS that I like by getting rid of the hideous global menu bar and replacing the brain-dead dock with uBar, using Witch instead of Cmd+Tab, using Karabiner to modify all the keyboard shortcuts and so forth and so on... It's not worth it and things will break often. So now I just use it the way it was intended (but only when I have to - I vastly prefer XFCE and Linux).