Enabling colour in xterm under X11 and editing bash environment for X11

Normally the .bashrc. If is not exit, create one with vi .bashrc.
In this file write all your Environment Variables.

Hi Novadan,

In order to get color output from ls command, you need to set CLICOLOR

export CLICOLOR=

CLICOLOR can be set to any value (including null string, as above). You may put this line to your .bashrc.

If you still don't get color output, then you must also set TERM to xterm-color (may other color-capable terminals may also work). You can do this by adding

export TERM=xterm-color

to .bashrc. Another method is to add the following line to your ~/.Xdefaults

XTerm*termName: xterm-color

PowerMacG4, PowerBookG4, iMac(C2D) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thanx for this info. I was aware that Darwin's "ls" doesn't colorize the same way as Linux versions do, but didn't know they could do it at all.

BTW, it's more typical to put your export statements in your .bash_profile file so that they aren't redundantly executed for each new shell level.

Finally, for more information, see the ls man page: % man ls

iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

As I referenced, look at the "ls" man page, particulary the description of the LSCOLORS environment variable. At the terminal prompt, type: man ls

it's more typical to put your export statements in your .bash_profile

Yes, it may be more "typical". But on MacOSX, by default, Apple's X11 invokes xterm without the -ls option, so the shell running in the xterm window is not a login shell. As you know, a login bash reads only .bash_profile while non-login bash reads only .bashrc. So CLICOLOR must be set in .bashrc (unless you configure your X11 so that xtem starts a login shell, by editing .xinitrc or .Xdefaults).

In theory, .bash_profile is for the top level (login) shell, and .bashrc is for sub-shells. But I guess may bash users make their .bash_profile to have just one line

source .bashrc



PowerMacG4, PowerBookG4, iMac(C2D) Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Good point. I mostly use Terminal, so forgot about this behavior. Seems like a good topic for a new thread: how to make Apple's X/xterm/bash play correctly together.