I've been trying to change the colors on my Xterm to have a black
background and green text.

As i want the settings changed globally, i've tried editing the file
/etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm-color which seemed to be what others had
done on other lists, but this hasn't worked. I don't want to change it
too much in case i screw it up completely.

Does anyone know how i could do this?



--

Jamie

key 3AD8F62B


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Jamie Griffin wrote:
> I've been trying to change the colors on my Xterm to have a
> black background and green text.

You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home directory
(or create it if it does not exist).

Put the following lines in the file:

xterm*VT100*foreground: green
xterm*VT100*background: black
xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red

(Well, that is if you want the cursor to be red.)

Regards, Jan


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 02:54:51PM +0200, Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
> You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home directory
> (or create it if it does not exist).
>
> Put the following lines in the file:
>
> xterm*VT100*foreground: green
> xterm*VT100*background: black
> xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red
>
> (Well, that is if you want the cursor to be red.)
>
Regards, Jan

Thanks Jan

I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next - does
anyone have any other ideas?

Jamie


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On 29 May 2008, Jamie Griffin wrote:
> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 02:54:51PM +0200, Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
> > You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home directory
> > (or create it if it does not exist).
> >
> > Put the following lines in the file:
> >
> > xterm*VT100*foreground: green
> > xterm*VT100*background: black
> > xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red
> >
> > (Well, that is if you want the cursor to be red.)
> >
> Regards, Jan
>
> Thanks Jan
>
> I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next - does
> anyone have any other ideas?
>
> Jamie
>

Try xtermset? E.g. xtermset -fg green -bg black -cr blue.

You could put this in .xinitrc.

Anthony


--
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
and sceptical articles)


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Op Thu, 29 May 2008 18:51:43 +0100 Jamie Griffin wrote:
> On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 02:54:51PM +0200, Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
> > You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home directory
> > (or create it if it does not exist).
> >
> > Put the following lines in the file:
> >
> > xterm*VT100*foreground: green
> > xterm*VT100*background: black
> > xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red
> >
> > (Well, that is if you want the cursor to be red.)
> >
> > Regards, Jan
>
> Thanks Jan
>
> I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next -
> does anyone have any other ideas?

As far as I know, the second asterisk in those lines should be a dot:

xterm*VT100.foreground: green
xterm*VT100.background: black
xterm*VT100.cursorColor: red

And... if you start X from the console, bypassing a login manager such
as gdm, you need to put those lines in ~/.Xdefaults instead of
~/.Xresources.
(At least, this was the situation a year ago - I suspect it has not
changed since then.)


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Jamie Griffin wrote:
> Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
>> You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home
>> directory (or create it if it does not exist).
>>
>> Put the following lines in the file:
>>
>> xterm*VT100*foreground: green
>> xterm*VT100*background: black
>> xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red

> I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next
> - does anyone have any other ideas?

This definitely *should* work. If it does not work something weird
is the matter. Are you sure your terminal program is xterm? For
instance, do you see the "VT Fonts" menu if you do a
control-rightclick in the terminal window?

Regards, Jan


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Jan Willem Stumpel <jstumpel@planet.nl> writes:

> Jamie Griffin wrote:
>> Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
>>> You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home
>>> directory (or create it if it does not exist).
>>>
>>> Put the following lines in the file:
>>>
>>> xterm*VT100*foreground: green
>>> xterm*VT100*background: black
>>> xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red
>
>> I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next
>> - does anyone have any other ideas?
>
> This definitely *should* work. If it does not work something weird
> is the matter. Are you sure your terminal program is xterm? For
> instance, do you see the "VT Fonts" menu if you do a
> control-rightclick in the terminal window?
>
> Regards, Jan

I missed some of this thread, so this may not be applicable in the above
case for some reason. But, assuming that the desire is to change the
values for any xterm, I have used one of the following formats in
.Xresources or .Xdefaults, and one or the other has always worked:

xterm*background: black

or:

XTerm.background: black

Maybe this will help the OP.

Patrick


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 03:39:28PM -0500, cothrige wrote:
> Jan Willem Stumpel <jstumpel@planet.nl> writes:
>
> > Jamie Griffin wrote:
> >> Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
> >>> You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home
> >>> directory (or create it if it does not exist).
> >>>
> >>> Put the following lines in the file:
> >>>
> >>> xterm*VT100*foreground: green
> >>> xterm*VT100*background: black
> >>> xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red
> >
> >> I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next
> >> - does anyone have any other ideas?
> >
> > This definitely *should* work. If it does not work something weird
> > is the matter. Are you sure your terminal program is xterm? For
> > instance, do you see the "VT Fonts" menu if you do a
> > control-rightclick in the terminal window?
> >
> > Regards, Jan
>
> I missed some of this thread, so this may not be applicable in the above
> case for some reason. But, assuming that the desire is to change the
> values for any xterm, I have used one of the following formats in
> .Xresources or .Xdefaults, and one or the other has always worked:
>
> xterm*background: black
>
> or:
>
> XTerm.background: black
>
> Maybe this will help the OP.
>
> Patrick
>
>
> --
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
>
ok. Still no luck with any of the suggesstions made.

It is definately an xterm - yes i do see the VT Fonts menu when i do a
ctrl > right-click.

even when i do 'xtermset -fg green -bg black -cr blue' i get command not
found.

So far i've edited the file: /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm-color and
created the files, as suggessted, ~/.Xdefaults and ~/.Xresources but
nothing has had any effect.

It's not a major issue but i am curious now and kinda would like to find
out how to do this.

Any other ideas guys?

Jamie
--

Jamie

key 3AD8F62B


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

Jan Willem Stumpel <jstumpel@planet.nl> writes:

>Jamie Griffin wrote:
>> Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
>>> You can edit a text file called .Xresources in your home
>>> directory (or create it if it does not exist).
>>>
>>> Put the following lines in the file:
>>>
>>> xterm*VT100*foreground: green
>>> xterm*VT100*background: black
>>> xterm*VT100*cursorColor: red

>> I've tried that and it hasn't worked. Not sure what to try next
>> - does anyone have any other ideas?

>This definitely *should* work. If it does not work something weird
>is the matter.

Or it could be that the line:
allow-user-resources

is not no /etc/X11/Xsession.options.

The .Xresources file will only be loaded if that option is present.

To test if your .Xresources are working without logging out and back in,
run:
$ xrdb -load .Xresources
and then start up an xterm.

.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org

On 30 May 2008, Jamie Griffin wrote:
>
[snip]

> even when i do 'xtermset -fg green -bg black -cr blue' i get command not
> found.
>
[snip]


You need to install xtermset explicitly -- it's a deb package.

Anthony

--
Anthony Campbell - ac@acampbell.org.uk
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
and sceptical articles)


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-REQUEST@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org