When I start gnome-terminal and do echo $TERM
, I got xterm
as output.
I want it to be xterm-256color
I've considered the solution to add 'export TERM=xterm256color'
in my .bashrc
. But I don't like this solution, what if I decide to switch shell? I have to add an other export to my new shell startup script?
So is there a better way to have automatically a 256 colors terminal when launching gnome-terminal?
Best Answer
Copying my answer from the same question @javabrett pointed out:
You were well advised not to change your startup scripts, specially
~/.bashrc
. Any "terminal detection" using current$TERM
or$COLORTERM
in~/.profile
is merely a guess, and may, as you said, cause trouble when using other terminals (say, Putty or xterm). The terminal emulator is supposed to set$TERM
, and this should not be changed from within the shell.Gnome terminal, AFAIK, does not offer a configuration to change its
TERM
, but it does allow you to change your startup command, and that's all you need. Here is the trick:Then use the following command:
Just replace
/bin/bash
with your preferred shell if it's different. And no, you can't use"$SHELL"
in that line for shell auto-detection ;) You have to hard-code it