For command line work, I use differently colored prompts to help distinguish between machines. When I first installed Ubuntu, Dapper was the current version, and the colors worked equally well in gnome-terminal as on the console. When I upgraded to Edgy, my prompts broke. I've now done a clean install of Feisty and experienced the same thing.
My laptop's prompt color is yellow/brown (actually, color codes 1;33m and 33m, respectively). They show up as a dark gray that is very difficult to read against a black background. Furthermore, the console fails to distinguish between bold and regular text, making my two colors identical.
When I boot without the "splash" option, I get a different console font--beginning with Feisty. In this situation, my yellow/brown color scheme displays as brown/brown (due to the lack of distinction between normal and bold colors). But, that's better than dark gray. Still, I have to boot without usplash to get the benefit of readable text. (There must be some bug somewhere that prevents the console from being set up properly when usplash runs.)
This bug occurs on my HP Compaq nx9010 laptop. My Edgy desktop behaves perfectly.
NOTE: This bug was, at one time, erroneously marked as a duplicate of bug 60915. However, it's a distinct issue. Usplash affects how the colors are displayed, but the colors are incorrect regardless of usplash--usplash simply makes the situation worse.
Does running 'sudo setupcon' from the console fix this problem? See bug 91422.