Hello ladies and gentlemen,
I have another one. How does one change background and foreground color on tty? I was looking all around on the web to find an answer, the only site that mentioned a tip how to do so was in Japanese, which I, apparently, cannot understand. Does anyone know how to do so? I am tired to see black background and white foreground on my tty's I want a change.

I suggest you first learn Japanese :-)

i know there's a file in /etc/for it, controls blinking, colors, screen inversions... and is really really long and cryptic.. can't remember what it's called though!!

ahh termcap i do believe.

I also beleive you can change the foreground color by changing PS1 and PS2 variables. I changed my prompt look by changing those variables. So now i have a prompt that displays date, user and machine name and its green and blue.

http://www.linuxbrit.co.uk/bashprompt/ can help you a little with that. But then i saw terminals with real art (Like when you start BitchX in CLI - the BitchX Logo) but i have no idea how to get the prompt to look like that (like a old DOS game or something)

Well good luck

-NSKL

ALso heres a HOWTO on customizing your bash prompt:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/

Thanks for all the replies guys, I knew I'd get some info. Hmm, I knew about /etc/termcap - I guess, I have to dive into understanding all that cryptic goop. NSKL, thanks for the link on bash prompt, I have no trouble changing PS1 variable, and thanks for more hints. But what I want to do, I want a plain white background, and black foreground, so it'll look like SunOS's terminal.
Hmmm, /etc/termcap ... I know this is the place, and the question remains how? Ok, I'll look for /etc/termcap howtos and examples.
Peace everyone.
Thanks
:POOF:

I think I got it, it is terminfo, the man page for termcap revealed that it is obsolete, terminfo is what I need, so I will delve into more cryptic goop.

are you talking about /etc/DIR_COLORS ?

No, it's not that, it defines only what colors to use when you do ls and staff, I want permanent background color to be white, and foreground to be black, that's all I need, I know I am a little spoiled but I want my terminal look like SunOS, why? because it's too dark at night to see my keyboard, I need some illumination.

try setterm
man setterm

...

setterm
[ -term Terminalname ]
[ -reset ]
[ -initialize ]
[ -cursor [on|off] ]
[ -repeat [on|off] ]
[ -appcursorkeys [on|off] ]
[ -linewrap [on|off] ]
[ -default ]
[ -foreground black|blue|green|cyan|red|magenta|yellow|white|default ]
[ -background black|blue|green|cyan|red|magenta|yellow|white|default ]
[ -ulcolor black|grey|blue|green|cyan|red|magenta|yellow|white ]
[ -ulcolor bright blue|green|cyan|red|magenta|yellow|white ]
[ -hbcolor black|grey|blue|green|cyan|red|magenta|yellow|white ]
[ -hbcolor bright blue|green|cyan|red|magenta|yellow|white ]
[ -inversescreen [on|off] ]
[ -bold [on|off] ]
[ -half-bright [on|off] ]
[ -blink [on|off] ]
[ -reverse [on|off] ]
[ -underline [on|off] ]
[ -store ]
[ -clear [all|rest] ]
[ -tabs [ tab1 tab2 tab3 ... ] ] (tabN = 1-160)
[ -clrtabs [ tab1 tab2 tab3 ... ] ] (tabN = 1-160)
[ -regtabs [1-160] ]
[ -blank [0-60] ]
[ -dump [1-Anzahl_Konsolen] ]
[ -append [1-Anzahl_Konsolen] ]
[ -file Dumpdateiname ]
[ -msg [on|off] ]
[ -msglevel [0-8] ]
[ -powersave [on|vsync|hsync|powerdown|off] ]
[ -powerdown [0-60] ]
[ -blength [0-2000] ]
[ -bfreq freqnumber ]

...

hope this helps ...

Thans demarque, I think I'll play with it.