How to colorize output of ls ?
Solution 1
If you are wanting to change your colours in the console, that is outside X, then you can specify colours in your .bashrc
, like so:
if [ "$TERM" = "linux" ]; then
echo -en "\e]P0222222" #black
echo -en "\e]P8222222" #darkgrey
echo -en "\e]P1803232" #darkred
....
fi
Where you are defining black as #222222
See this post for the details: http://phraktured.net/linux-console-colors.html
If you are working in X, then you can customize your setup by defining your colours in your .Xresources
like so:
!black
*color0: #3D3D3D
*color8: #5E5E5E
!red
*color1: #8C4665
*color9: #BF4D80
...
and then sourcing this file when you start X, typically from your .xinitrc
:
xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources
The Arch Wiki has a page on .Xresources that explains all of the options: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xresources
Another enhancement you can make either in X or not is to specify all of the different filetypes that you would like to colour—and their respective colours in a .dir_colors
file, like so:
.xinitrc 01;31
.Xauthority 01;31
.Xmodmap 00;31
.Xresources 01;33
...
To get started, copy /etc/dir_colors
to your user's /home
directory and make your changes. Then source this from your .bashrc
with eval $(dircolors -b ~/.dir_colors)
This will allow you fine-grained control over the colours of files and filetypes when you use ls
.
You can find (an incredibly detailed and thorough) .dir_colors
example file here:
https://github.com/trapd00r/LS_COLORS/blob/master/LS_COLORS
With a combination of all three approaches, you can create a reasonably uniform setup, whether you are working in the console or in X.
Solution 2
The file you want is /etc/DIR_COLORS
. I had the exact same issue as you and changed directories to a teal color. Works much nicer.
cp /etc/DIR_COLORS /home/yourusername/.dir_colors
Edit /home/yourusername/.dir_colors
, you will see this line:
DIR 01;34 #directory
Change that to this:
DIR 01;36 #directory
Which makes directory colors teal.
Vishal Kumar
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
-
Vishal Kumar over 1 year
I'm running CentOS in Linux text mode. When I run the command
ls /usr/
, the output is too hard to read (dark blue on black). How can I change the text coloring? -
Vishal Kumar over 12 yearsi am sorry, i am a new learner of linux. i installed it in linux text. there is no console. all the thing are running in command line. thank you,
-
jasonwryan over 12 yearsYes: that is what I meant when I said outside X - in the TTY consoles (TTY 1-7).
-
Michael Mrozek over 12 years@run It's not a command, it's a configuration file; open it in a text editor
-
Vishal Kumar over 12 yearsthe DIR is 01;34 HOW TO CHANGE TO teal color. thank you,
-
Vishal Kumar over 12 yearsjasonwryan,i run the command vim /etc/DIR_COLORS the DIR is 01;34 HOW TO CHANGE TO teal color. thank you,
-
jasonwryan over 12 yearsThe term colours are here: tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x329.html Green is
00;32
and light/bold green is1;32
The only way to get teal is to use the method I described above to define one of those 16 colours as a hex equivalent of teal. -
Bernhard about 10 years@MaxMackie This does not seem to work for me (copied to
~/.dir_colors
) and changed everything to00
. Found that I have to open a new terminal. How is this enforced/attached to the current terminal? -
Arsen Karapetjan almost 10 yearssorry if this is a beginners question, but does your answer change for a Unix system in OS X?
-
jasonwryan almost 10 years@CharlieParker I haven't tested in the console, but the approach for the terminal using
.Xresources
works fine...