vim colors in xterm

Bjørn · 2004-04-01 11:50:41

I really like coding in vim, but with the current vim package in Arch Linux, the colors don't seem to work in all cases. In a standard xterm, the colors in the directory listings are working fine, but when I start vim, it only uses bold and underline and no color whatsoever.

I tried some different terminals, and gnome-terminal has the same problem. But the colors were working fine in aterm and Eterm! Now I don't really like the last two because they are slower, uglier, have all kinds of features I don't use, and the text is flickering when I move the window.

I used to use Slackware and vim colors were working fine in xterm there. Would anybody know what could be wrong with my setup?

contrasutra · 2004-04-01 12:14:13

add this to your ~/.bashrc:

export TERM=xterm-color

Bjørn · 2004-04-01 16:17:09

Ah, thanks a lot, works like magic!

It would still be nice to know why it works and how I could have found out about it without asking, though.

scottro · 2004-04-01 16:22:00

Heh, it's one of those things you pick up somewhere. Seriously, I usually use either rxvt or atem. Xterm doesn't do color, I don't know why or how I found out about it. I probably went to deja (now google.groups, I think, I still type deja) and did a search or something.

There are things you pick up somewhere--for example (I was complaining about this to a friend recently, when we were talking about poor documentation) most folks know that kill -1 or killall -SIGHUP restarts most processes (though not all). However, the Linux and FreeBSD man pages don't mention this, they simply say it terminates a process--OpenBSD, which often has better (imho) man pages do mention in passing that it will cause a process to reread its config file (in the example they mention, inetd).

Your attitude is admirable. It's probably in some document somewhere, you could try doing apropos colors--which, in FreeBSD (where I'm writing this) gives about 15 different possible man pages.

Bjørn · 2004-04-01 17:45:13

apropos... another new command learned. It comes up with about 81 manpages, none of them seems very useful though.

Before asking here I tried reading the man pages of both xterm and vim, and then parts of the vim manual where I came along the color test and whatnot. I just couldn't find what could be related to this color problem.

scottro · 2004-04-01 23:55:19

Heh, if I could remember exactly how I learned it, I'd help. I ~think~ that I did what I mentioned earlier, something like a deja search with vim, color xterm or something like that.

Don't worry--as I said, you have an excellent attitude, so you'll be learning lots of things about lots of things.

Arch Linux

#1 2004-04-01 11:50:41

vim colors in xterm

#2 2004-04-01 12:14:13

Re: vim colors in xterm

#3 2004-04-01 16:17:09

Re: vim colors in xterm

#4 2004-04-01 16:22:00

Re: vim colors in xterm

#5 2004-04-01 17:45:13

Re: vim colors in xterm

#6 2004-04-01 23:55:19

Re: vim colors in xterm

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