How to colorize output of ls ?

Question

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?

Answer 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.

Answer 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.