[SOLVED] Adding Colours in Terminal + SSH

NotAComputerGuy · 06-22-2012, 08:49 AM

Hi,

Since switching from Ubuntu to LMDE one of the features I miss the most is the colours in my terminal. How can I add Ubuntu like colours in my SSH and local terminals? I think it involves the .bashrc file, but when looking through Duckduckgo for .bashrc files I find them confusing, not really understanding which bits I should be adding.

Can anyone tell me how to add the default Ubuntu colours please?

Thanks

fogpipe · 06-22-2012, 09:05 AM

If you are talking about prompts and ls output, put this in your .bashrc to get colored ls output:

Code:

alias ls='ls --color=auto'

This will give you a colored prompt, i use different colors for root vs users and for different machines:

Code:

PS1="[\[\033[1;32m\]\u\[\033[1;31m\]@\[\033[1;34m\]\h\[\033[1;31m\]\[\033[0;32m\]\[\033[1;35m\]:\W\[\033[0m\]]\[\033[0;31m\]$\[\033[0m\]"

This will give you user@hostname /currentworkingdirectory in the title bar of xterm, urxvt etc in an X session:

Code:

case $TERM in   xterm*)



PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME} ${PWD}\007"'

                                ;;
                                  esac

For colored man pages:

Code:

### for color less and man pages
export LESS="-R"
export LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$'\E[01;31m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_md=$'\E[01;31m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_me=$'\E[0m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_se=$'\E[0m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_so=$'\E[01;44;33m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$'\E[0m'
export LESS_TERMCAP_us=$'\E[01;32m'

All of the above go in your .bashrc which you should backup before editing.

This looks like a pretty good resource for experimenting with colors:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Color_Bash_Prompt

And is the first result from google for "colored prompt linux"

EDIT: Just wanted to add that after editing your .bashrc you will need to source that file to see the changes. To do that type:

Code:

. .bashrc

at a prompt in your home directory and then press enter.

NotAComputerGuy · 06-22-2012, 10:28 AM

Hi and thanks for the help, explanations and useful link!