How does vim colorscheme work with gnome-terminal profile colors?

Question

I am confused about how vim's color schemes seem to be working for me with my gnome terminal color settings.

I have installed the colorscheme sample pack: http://www.vi-improved.org/color_sampler_pack/

All of these appear differently for me, and they change as I change my Foreground and Background colors and Palette in my gnome-terminal profile.

Is there some way to allow vim's color scheming to override these terminal settings?

Setting vim to use 256 colors using :set t_Co=256 changes the appearance, but does not solve the problem.

Solution

set your TERM environment variable to xterm-256color, as it is described in http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/256_colors_in_vim.

Comments

[doctororange]

This seems to have gotten me half way. Some of the colorschemes appear to be able to change the background color now, but others don't, and any change to my terminal color preferences still seem to override the vim color preferences.

[akira]

not all colorschemes support 256colors.

[doctororange]

I see. I'm yet to use a text editor that makes working with syntax highlighting truly simple :p

[akira]

just stay with vim for the rest of your life. you set it up once .. done.