You can add colour to your Linux terminal utilizing particular ANSI encoding settings, both dynamically in a terminal command or in configuration information, or you should utilize ready-made themes in your terminal emulator. Either approach, the nostalgic inexperienced or amber textual content on a black display screen is wholly non-compulsory. This article demonstrates how one can make Linux as colourful (or as monochromatic) as you need.
Terminal capabilities
Modern methods often default to a minimum of xterm-256colour, however for those who attempt to add colour to your terminal with out success, you need to examine your TERM setting.
Historically, Unix terminals had been actually that: bodily factors on the literal endpoint (termination) of a shared pc system the place customers may kind in instructions. They had been distinctive from the teletype machines (which is why we nonetheless have /dev/tty gadgets in Linux immediately) that had been typically used to situation instructions remotely. Terminals had CRT displays built-in, so customers may sit at a terminal of their workplace to work together immediately with the mainframe. CRT displays had been costly—each to fabricate and to regulate; it was simpler to have a pc spit out crude ASCII textual content than to fret about anti-aliasing and different niceties that fashionable computerists take as a right. However, developments in know-how occurred quick even then, and it rapidly turned obvious that as new video show terminals had been designed, they wanted new capabilities to be accessible on an non-compulsory foundation.
For occasion, the flamboyant new VT100 launched in 1978 supported ANSI colour, so if a consumer recognized the terminal kind as vt100, then a pc may ship colour output, whereas a primary serial machine may not have such an possibility. The identical precept applies immediately, and it is set by the TERM environment variable. You can examine your TERM definition with echo:
$ echo $TERM
xterm-256colour
The out of date (however nonetheless maintained on some methods within the curiosity of backward compatibility) /and many others/termcap file outlined the capabilities of terminals and printers. The fashionable model of that’s terminfo, situated in both /and many others or /usr/share, relying in your distribution. These information checklist options accessible in numerous sorts of terminals, lots of that are outlined by historic : there are definitions for vt100 by way of vt220, in addition to for contemporary software program emulators like xterm and Xfce. Most software program does not care what terminal kind you are utilizing; in uncommon situations, you may get a warning or error about an incorrect terminal kind when logging right into a server that checks for suitable options. If your terminal is about to a profile with only a few options, however you understand the emulator you utilize is able to extra, then you’ll be able to change your setting by defining the TERM surroundings variable. You can do that by exporting the TERM variable in your ~/.bashrc configuration file:
export TERM=xterm-256colourSave the file, and reload your settings:
$ supply ~/.bashrcANSI colour codes
Modern terminals have inherited ANSI escape sequences for “meta” options. These are particular sequences of characters terminal interprets as actions as an alternative of characters. For occasion, this sequence clears the display screen as much as the following immediate:
$ printf `