This is part of The Pile, a partial archive of some open source mailing lists and newsgroups.
((This here is a nice rant about not customizing system files, with lots of useful information about messing with xterm colors. -- Joe B.)) Subject: Re: Xterm font & background color setting under windowmaker From: Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au> Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 00:20:12 +0000 On 10 Mar 1999, in message <Pine.BSF.3.96.990310104644.29977A-100000@namodn.com> Nick <nick@namodn.com> wrote: | The xterm colors have nothing to do with windowmaker, True. | what you can | do for that is use rxvt instead of the standard xterm. Bizarre. Xterm's perfectly tunable. Changing clients is overkill. | heres how i suggest | you do that. | | cd /usr/bin | sudo mv xterm xterm.old | sudo pico xterm | --in new xterm file put the following | | #!/bin/sh | rxvt -fg grey -bg black -ls | | -- save file | sudo chmod u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx xterm | | this way whenever you anything in X windows calls an xterm, it loads rxvt | instead, which i think is a well done alternative to the standard xterm. For gods sake DON'T DO THIS!!! This is really really bad. Always try to leave the system nice and stock and do your customization in your user environment. Firstly, you can modify xterm's colours and other attribs by editing your .Xdefaults file. (I run green-on-black myself, with yellow highlights.) See: http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/answers/x11-cut-paste.txt and http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/answers/xterm-fonts.txt for some discussion of fiddling with this. The examples address font choice and mouse controls, but apply just as well to colours. See the bottom of the xterm manual entry for a list of the attributes available for adjustment. If you do want to switch clients to, say, xvt, _that_ is a windowmaker thing if you invoke it from a menu. Locate the spec when invokes "xterm" and tell it to use "xvt" instead. Simple. If for some odd reason you really do want to still type "xterm" but actually want to run something else when you do so: - DO NOT hack about with the system files (otherwise things will stop working for other users - even on a personal system some things will expect to be able to say "xterm" (or whatever) and actually _get_ an xterm) - write yourself a script called "xterm" like Nick's example above, but put it in _your_ bin directory (which should be up at the front of your path); that way you get the odd behaviour and everything else is unaffected Frequently you'll see advice in this list on customization which says: "edit some central system file" This is usually a bad idea - UNIX systems are replete with facilities for doing almost anything you want (for yourself) from within your normal user account. Since that's who you will almost always be, do it there where it doesn't affect _everything_. Damage control! Besides, that way you can take your account elsewhere (work, your ISP, whatever) and all your little hacks will still work, and your life will be happier because your environment is as you prefer it. Those who know me know my personal environment is very weird, but it's _all_ done from within my account, and the setup files are _identical_ at work, at home and at my ISP. This is because I've worked hard at it and now keep them all literally in sync for ease of maintenance. If I had gone the way of the Dark Side and hacked the system files then I'd be stuffed when I got to a system I didn't have admin rights to. Besides, hacking the system files puts you at risk at upgrade time, both of breaking the upgrade and of having your hacks eaten because they were in a central spot. Cheers,