Every distribution includes and excludes features according to its own
preferences in the various versions of Vim it distributes. By default,
+xterm_clipboard is enabled in Normal, Big and Huge versions — unless
they are configured with the --without-x switch. If you run a
GUI-enabled Vim in an xterm or similar terminal emulator, it ought to
be able to access the clipboard. If your default "vim" executable (as
shown by "which vim" and possibly repeating it to follows the link) is
compiled with -x11, then "gvim -v" ought to start the gvim executable
in console mode. If you compile your own Vim and the proper
development packages are installed, it will be named "vim" with (among
others) a soft link "gvim" pointing to it.
All this is for Unix-like systems: on MS-Windows no executable can
serve both in console mode and in GUI mode.
Best regards,
Tony.