How to change background and fonts color in xterm?
 

Hi guys: i did a dist-upgrade and was fine, except, my xterm is in white with black fonts. I googled, and edited /etc/X11/apps-defaults/XTerm-color but nada!

I want my background black with white fonts.

Any ideas?

thank you!

mac

I believe you can do it with a command line option.

ie. Bob

thanks utabintarbo: the thing is, as soon as you close the xterm and restart another one, it reverts to the original problem. :(

mac

To change the color permanently in the RHL default terminal you have to change the Terminals default profile. In the menu choose >>
edit->Profiles
Mark the profile named 'default' by clicking on it. In the menu choose>>
edit.
A window will pop up an in the top you will see 'colors', select that. Uncheck box 'Use colors from system theme', and then you will be able to select 'White on Black' or anything else as you please.

Andreas

type man xterm
create a file named(sensitive case) XTerm in your home directory with your specs

XTerm*Background: linen
XTerm*Foreground: black
XTerm*font: 9x15
XTerm*saveLines: 1000
XTerm*HiForeColor: white
XTerm*HiBackColor: #c06077
XTerm*geometry: +50+100

How do I do it in runlevel 3 or 2 ??
I do not find xterm command there....

On run level 2 and 3 you already have a command line. These run levels are for that purpose. Why do you need a terminal emulator when you already are working on command line.

Hi,

What I need is to change background to white

This will help you a bit. You will have to look out for color schemes and color numbers. For making changes permanent put this line in .bashrc

export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h \W]\$ \e[m "

This topic is the first Google result for "xterm black background", so sorry for the necro, but the question is IMO not clearly answered and contains several totally irrelevant replies.

If you want your XTerm color to be white font on black background, then create or edit a file named .Xdefaults in your home directory, and place the following in it:

Then restart xterm.

You can of course switch the colors if you want black on white.

Thanks for the necro. Works perfectly.

and so...6 months later i say
 

This is exactly right, too many people are responding with irrelevant replies, please people read the | o )amn topic before posting messages!!

There is also a parameter 'reverseVideo', which can be 'true' or 'false'. If it is true, like:
background and foreground colors are inverted.

Mich

Thank You AlucardZero!
Further moreYou can pick any color for background and foreground using Alu's method and changing the colors to one's you want.

For example:
Color Name Chart

modify the background color of a running xterm
 

Is it possible to modify the background color of a running xterm ?

I like to use xterm because they are light shell windows and don't use so much ressources the Gnome-terminal or KDE Konsole but when you have a grat number of them with a ssh shell on different servers in each they are difficult to reconize with only a name.
I thinck it would be a good way to reconize process running in each xterm if it would modify the background color of it, is it possible to do so ?

I mean, in Gnome-Terminal or Konsole, it's easy to modify the background of a running terminal by modifying its profile using the terminal menu, with xterm there is not such a ressource, you can activate some ressources by cliking the mouse keys with the Ctrl-key active but nome of these ressources control the background or the foreground color.

Do somebody know a way to do it ?