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According to Wiki's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#8-bit article there are 8 "Standard colors" and 8 "High-intensity colors". When I checked terminal capability of the Linux' virtual console (tty) by tput colors it showed 8. However, if I print them in VT I get 16 distinct colors. Why is so that?

Here is the screenshot:

enter image description here

I see that there is no 256 color support. Console just mix existing ones causing such "effect". So I do not ask why it doesn't support X or something like that.

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According to Wiki's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code#8-bit article there are 8 "Standard colors" and 8 "High-intensity colors". When I checked terminal capability of the Linux' virtual console (tty) by tput colors it showed 8. However, if I print them in VT I get 16 distinct colors. Why is so that?

If you look closely, you can see that colors 0-7 are darker versions of 8 through 15.

This scheme is based on early text-mode hardware that used 4 bits to determine Red, Green, Blue and Intensity, like this:

-----------------
| 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
-----------------
| I | R | G | B |
-----------------

Add up the values for what you want. Light red = 8+4 = 12, for example.

Bits are arranged differently in your example, looks like 1=red, 2=green, 4=blue.

In this scheme there are 3 color bits, so 8 different colors (000 or black is a color) with 1 selectable brightness or intensity bit. This is what is meant by "8 standard colors and 8 high-intensity colors."

(These bits were stored in a section of memory called "attribute memory" - the other 4 bits could select a background color and turn on/off blinking mode.)

As far as why you are not seeing 256 colors, your terminal is probably not in 256 color mode or something like that.

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  • The screenshot is from actual Linux console rather than terminal emulator. So by default the kernel's vt driver emulates old-days 8 color behavior? Can I actually set 16 distinct colors using RGB (where each color is 8 bit)?
    – Timur Fayzrakhmanov
    Jul 31, 2018 at 15:05
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    You can choose between any 1 of 16 colors (black + 15 others). If you are working from actual hardware text mode then it's not an emulation and you probably can't choose more than those colors no matter what. Linux supports a "framebuffer" console which should support that.
    – LawrenceC
    Jul 31, 2018 at 15:08
  • I don't think I get the final point but I have too much question in mind so I end here :], thank you anyway. In general, I have difficulties by distinguishing what is actually supported by "framebuffer" console (or as you said "hardware text mode") vs X terminal emulator. It would be great if there is some good article out there where I can go deeper on the topic..
    – Timur Fayzrakhmanov
    Jul 31, 2018 at 15:15
  • This might help: robmeerman.co.uk/unix/256colours
    – LawrenceC
    Jul 31, 2018 at 15:16
  • Unfortunately, it didn't much help since it's more about configuring X "thing"s rather than classic VT mode and its capabilities, how it renders, how it reacts to input, how /dev/tty and /dev/pty related, etc. Maybe a bit more theory behind the internal working.
    – Timur Fayzrakhmanov
    Aug 1, 2018 at 7:36

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