Ubuntu – No terminal colors in Ubuntu Server 12.04

12.04colorsputtyxterm

I've tried everything from this duplicate question but I still can't get it to work. The only difference from that question is that when I run env | grep TERM I get TERM=xterm instead of TERM=xterm-color. I dont think it matters though, they seem to be pretty interchangeable.

What I don't understand however is that the only thing that has disappeared is the colors in the actual prompt. For example, if I run nano and it detects the syntax of the file, for example if it's a script, I get colors. Also when I run the env command mentioned earlier, the actual TERM text is red.

So the colors are obviously working, it's just that I don't get colored folders, executable files and so on anymore. I think it also might have occured in connection to installing Ruby/RVM. I've tried replacing .bashrc. (edit However, when creating a new user, that user has working colors)

I suppose this has a pretty simple solution but I'm just so sick of googling this now that I'd really appreciate som info on how the coloring settings works in the terminal and how this could happen. Thanks!

Best Answer

You do not have problems with your terminal or terminal setting. Try this:

ls --color

It works, doesn't it?

Most likely, you have replaced your .bashrc. You can find the original .bashrc, which for example defines the alias ls='ls --color=auto' and also color promtpts in /etc/skel/.

Copy a new .bashrc with:

mv ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc.old
cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/.bashrc

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Does gnome-terminal $TERM display xterm

It has the same reason why almost every webbrowser (FF,IE,Safari,Chrome,...) uses Mozilla in their User Agent String.

The TERM variable set to xterm only means that your terminal is compatible with the xterm terminal (has the same capabilities), so the system can treat it and communicate with it as it would with an xterm. The system has the terminfo database which stores the terminal capabilities for various terminals (/lib/terminfo directory), and in that terminfo database there is no such as gnome-terminal.

For some more info look at this answer or look up the manpages of terminfo or infocmp

Ubuntu – Can’t get the right colors in gnome terminal

The base16-default.dark.sh script in base16-gnome-terminal installs the Base 16 Default Dark profile for the Gnome terminal. In order to actually use it, you need to activate the profile via Terminal → Change Profile → Base 16 Default Dark which applies the profile to the current session.

You probably want to use it as default profile. In order to do that, you need to go to the Profile preferences via Edit → Profiles… and choose the Profile used when launching a new terminal.

Additionally the Gnome terminal has 256 color support, which you might like to activate. In order to do that, you need to run source base16-default.dark.sh script from base16-shell. To make the changes permanent add the following lines to your ~./bashrc file, presuming you're using bash:

# Base16 Shell
BASE16_SHELL="$HOME/.config/base16-shell/base16-default.dark.sh"
[[ -s $BASE16_SHELL ]] && source $BASE16_SHELL

Try to run the colortest script from the base16-shell repository in a new terminal session to see if everything worked.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Does gnome-terminal $TERM display xterm

Ubuntu – Can’t get the right colors in gnome terminal

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