Ubuntu
bash package

No color prompt in color capable terminal

Bug #156195 reported by Victor Engmark on 2007-10-23

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #103929: Bash prompt string looks for xterm-color, gnome terminal identifies as xterm. Edit Remove

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	bash (Ubuntu)	Triaged	Wishlist	Unassigned

Bug Description

The default .bashrc doesn't enable the color prompt, even though `ls --color=yes` shows colors. The following code is in the default .bashrc:
case "$TERM" in
xterm-color)
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
    ;;
*)
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
    ;;
esac

I propose to change this to the following:
if [ $COLORTERM -o "$TERM" == 'xterm-color' ]; then
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '
fi

Revision history for this message

Matthias Klose (doko) wrote on 2008-02-08:

hmm, maybe a matter of taste; I don't like colored prompts ;-)

Changed in bash:
importance:	Undecided → Wishlist
status:	New → Triaged

Revision history for this message

era (era) wrote on 2008-02-21:

Mathias, the proposal is not primarily to force color on those who don't want it, but basically to make the code run as the original coder intended. Specifically, it will look at the COLORTERM variable as well as TERM, which will make it work in gnome-terminal. See also bug 103929. I imagine (and hope!) that there is a way to disable COLORTERM if you don't want color prompts. In any event, I believe this is a proposal for the skel bashrc, which power users routinely override anyway.